Now, for my personal opinion.

I think that winning with more than 18 SC's is a difficult thing to do. The only way it's not difficult is if the remaining players just give up, in that case, it's them you need to complain to! Additionally, getting over 18 in one turn from 17 or less takes careful planning and you would be pushing it to get more than 20-22 centres, which only gives them 64 %, only 11% more. We're talking about at most 55/500 points! It's up to the winners to decide if it's really worth it and the losers to stop complaining and whining. Just take being beat like a mature person.

That's the worst attempt at spelling the word 'argument' ever seen, but otherwise, Churchill's arguemement is right.

the game ends when someone wins 18 SCs. there are a few more retarded things in the world than making position to win more than 18 SCs in the last turn

My apologies for the spelling, that happens when you stop in the middle of a word and you're very tired.

Now that we have a new thread with this topic, I am going to reiterate my argument in favor of caps.

The point of ending the game once a player has reached 18 SCs is that someone with that much territory can almost guarantee being able to run over any remaining opposition, and IIRC correctly the game's original designer originally had the game continue until someone controlled all the territories. However, this makes the endgame incredibly tedious for everyone else, as they sit there passing turn after turn while the leader mops up. It's like in Risk, when the last player left has a dozen armies in Australia and holds on forever, until the dice rolls turn against him. It's boring. If you're going to encourage that sort of maneuvering, you might as well require people to play to 34 SCs.

As for Churchill's statements, I have a few responses:
1) with respect to the difficulty of the deed, it is sort of irrelevant. It is more difficult to win after you've been reduced to two SCs than if everything goes your way from the beginning, but there's no extra reward for that. It's marginally more difficult to win as Italy (at least, if statistics are to be believed), but we don't give an "Italian bonus". It's more difficult to hack into the server to give yourself extra armies, or more points, or to change your opponents' orders, but you cannot expect us to condone rewarding that behavior. The point is that the additional difficulty doesn't necessarily justify an additional reward (otherwise unassisted triple plays would get four outs, for those who understand baseball).
2) With respect to the degree of difference, you can't have it both ways. Either the difference in points for extra SCs is basically insignificant, in which case there's no reason to do it other than poor sportsmanship, or the points are significant, in which case the survivors who played a good game to end are penalized. If the extra points are worth it to you, just play winner-takes-all.
3) Winning with more than 18 SCs is not (in my opinion) any more difficult than winning with exactly 18, except that it takes longer. Putting the fleets and armies into the right tactical position to get the job done is only a matter of spending the time to do it, and the dominant player ought to find this rather easy since he can leave more of his interior centers undefended. In fact it can even be a terribly simple matter to exceed 18 centers if you have a "strong second" ally working in collusion with you.
4) I think your remarks that characterize objects as losers whining and complaining are poisoning the well.

1) Yes, the difficulty of the deed is largely irrelevant. Comparing it to hacking the server is taking the arguemement a little too far, though, IMO.
2) It does make little difference. There is little reason (though not "no reason", if you'll excuse the double negative) to do it. It does gain you a few more points, and allows the victor to show off and to bully his enemies (and, perhaps, his former allies). There's an arguememement that this is poor sportsmanship, but I think it's the wrong argumememement, since sportsmanship is irrelevant in a game like Dip, IMO.
3) The difficulty of the deed depends on the circumstances at end game, but menace's point #3 is entirely defeated by menace's point #1. The difficulty of the deed is, indeed, irrelevant.
4) It sounds like poisoning the well, but I understood that Churchill's use of the term 'losers' was intended to be taken quite literally, and not as a term of abuse. Arguing the case for capping on the grounds that the los.... that 'those-who-have-been-defeated' must wait longer until the end of the game IF the victor chooses to grab some extra SCs (which was a point raised in the original thread) sounds a lot like whining to me, too. Entering trivial orders for this game takes seconds, and not entering orders for a game you can't win costs nothing, unless points are important to you.... in which case, like menace says, just play winner-takes-all.

There is a huge difference, by the way, between taking the opportunity to grab an extra few SCs, and playing a game which requires you to take 34. Again, menace takes the arguememememement too far.

Hey, I'm starting to like that word....

Mr. Clod, it's not that contrary argument 3 defeats argument 1, it's that it complements it. Contra 1 can be seen as a hypothetical argument, that is, *even if* it were more difficult (or if you are unpersuaded by the argument that it isn't), the difficulty is irrelevant to figuring point totals.

I also disagree that sportsmanship is irrelevant to Diplomacy; most people on here frown on meta-gaming and multi-accounting for essentially the same reason: not only is (arguably) a way to cheat, but it also shows disrespect to people who come to play and expect to be taken seriously.

Also, I mistyped my fourth point, for which I apologize. The focus was intended to be on the characterization of disagreement as whining and complaining, not as those who fail to win as losers (although I have tried to formulate my argument on grounds of consistency and fairness, rather than the question of whether or not it wastes people's time).

My point is that there aren't really any good arguments in favor of doing it current way, except (I'm paraphrasing here) "Shut up and take it like the punk you are." I think that's a dumb reason.

The idea of the points system is that, on average, the number of points you win reflects your skill. Waiting to position units to gain extra supply centers doesn't show any Dip skill beyond that of winning the game, so there's no reason to reward it

This is a bug that'll be fixed, the excess points will be allocated to the other players based on how many SCs they have. This could be open to abuse by the winner positioning his units to take SCs from a certain country only, to favor another survivor, but I think that'll remain hypothetical

Personally, I wouldn't waste the time to get more than 18 SC's. I would only take more than 18 if I had to attack multiple ones to be sure of a breakthrough and in coindidence took more than needed then I would have more. In the end, it's what the community wants, as this is not a rules regulated part of Diplomacy and it the community's own method.

In the event that the points were capped, I agree that they should be distributed to the players. Of course, this could still lead to some complaining from the countries from who the unecessary centres were taken (as the points they would have gotten will now be split up). I don't think you can regulate favoring one country over another, as this is how alliances work, and a potential winner may team up with another player who could win points the points that the 1st place winner cannot.

Obviously, points are a big enough incentive, as people do use this system to get more!

WTA does fix the entire issue, but another possible way to do it would be to split the pot in this manner:

30% 1st place
25% 2nd place
20% 3rd place
15% 4th place
10% 5th place
0% 6th place
0% 7th place


It's just a thought but it would take a lot of calculations out and you would know what the awards are and it would take out complaining about pot rewards. It also recognises players who survive longer than others. If two players would be tied at the end, the two pots are added and split half and half.

It's just an idea...

If we added another system the only one I would be in favour of would be 50-50, where half the points go to the winner directly and the rest are split amoung all the players by SC. So, the winner would get around 75% of the points, with the rest shared out.

Wouldn't all of the same people who are now setting up the game to get themselves more than 18 SCs at the end then instead set up the game to favor their loyal minions at the end?

obviously not, but they could set up some very nice convoys

I'm with Medi on this one, those that were complaining about this subject before would now complain that the "winner" was helping his allies to gain their supply centres. Which I might be compelled to do...

Churchill - The point distribution you listed encourages players to make unbreakable alliances from the beginning of the game. If the payout is only 5% different betweeen 1st and 2nd place, there is little incentive to backstab in a winning alliance.

The point system should encourge all players to attempt to WIN every game.

The points system has had lots of success, and I've been amazed at the range of improvements which such a simple change provided. Any improvements to it would only be small enhancements to a system that already does what it was designed to do just fine

Points-per-supply-center and winner-takes-all each have their own advantages/disadvantages, which depend on whether you want a game where everyone stops at nothing to win or a game where everyone is paid back based more on performance generally.

Points-per-supply-center means people have reason to stay and reason to ally, which means less civil disorders and more people allying, and more people are paid back. This is great for newcomers, and works well for any player as a general measure of skill; if you end up with more SCs on average you're probably a better player

Winner-takes-all is great only if everyone really wants to win, and will come up with inventive alliance shifts to do so. This means it's good for high-stakes games with players that all do a lot of negotiation and play in few games, but sucks for a low-stakes game where one person gets ahead slightly and everyone else leaves.

Everything else is a trade-off between the two, no matter how you split it up (50%,60%,30-20-10,fibonacci sequence,exponential decay,etc) it's always just a trade-off between two types of game, and it's not worth the complexity of having extra points distribution choices just for the sake of small nudges from one end of the spectrum to the other.


Cases where people can get more points using tricks will get dealt with on a case by case basis, but it still only relates to small amounts of points, and it's really pretty sad.. Did Rait/dangermouse get all their points with silly stunts at the end of games, or with good play?

Right now, it's possible to pick up a hundred points just by having all your others otherwise invested when a game ends, so quibbling about fair point division seems a bit.... well.... pointless.

Well, that's yet another topic of discussion... although I thought that it had been agreed that this is only when the number of active games you are in reaches 0 that is resets you...

It should be, I think.... but it isn't.

Theoretically, I think it should be possible to invest a few points in taking over a futile position from civil disorder (preferably in a game where someone is imminently about to win, especially if you throw your centers at them), invest all the rest of your points creating a game that few players would join (say, a WTA with a prohibitively high pot, or you've called the game "For Dykes Only", or something), get a free hundred points when the first game is over, and get all your other points back when time runs out for your new game to start. You could stack up a few thousand points very quickly, without actually surviving a game. (Don't shoot me, I'm only the messenger....)

Sorry, just to clarify.... when I say I think it should be possible, what I mean to say is, clearly it SHOULDN'T be possible.... but until that bug's fixed, I think that it IS possible.... theoretically....

In order for that to work, you have to jump in within 24 hours of the CD game ending. Better to just hold on to your hat until your last round is about to end, and then start the new game. Even then, you could probably accumulate points faster by multi-accounting.

Possibly.... but that would be against the rules.... :O