PPSC gets too friendly in the endgame. Diplomacy should be more cutthroat and less of a Little League "everyone wins" bullshit mentality.

interesting, our famed creator is also personally in favor of a time-limit or "year-limit" game (he does not say whether 1908 or 1910 or what) or even having the winning criterion be 16 centers or even 12 ... which all goes to show that all of these permutations are just variants ... on vdip Oli (Sleepcap) even has it set up so you can alter the number of centers for a win, or cap the year when the game will finish, both of which Mr. Callhamer supports!!

@achilles - I don't know why people care so much either, I play both as well, you just have to know what you're getting into with either since they have different mentalities once you get to mid-game ...

Please do not post variation accusations in the forum. Email the mods at, oh wait.

I find it interesting that certain topics are quite cyclical on WebDip: wta vs ppsc, full press vs gunboat, webdip vs vdip, etc. I thought it is obvious that after participating in one of these once or twice that we would all have the same sentiment that there is no ONE way to play the game and that the point of the game -of any game- is to have fun regardless of whether it is to win, draw, vengeance, provocation, and whatever else.

Gunboat isn't real Diplomacy

Yes, zultar, but we can't let those idiots get away with playing their stupid variation ;)

yeh, but we have to kill time and have small talk, so there is nothing like "beating the horse" ... that's like a euphemism or a euphonium or an emporium or some such thing I think

@2ndWhiteLine -- wanna play a PPSC gunboat variant over on vdip?

I'll create gunboat.net. It will have a forum, but everybody will be muted.

Lol @ Zmaj.
@ everyone else, zultar is right.

@Rancher - beating the horse... Well, I hope it is a dead horse, Otherwise you are creating a stampede and commiting a criminal act of animal cruelty. And I believe you'd call it euphoria. No wait. That ain't right...

@Zultar - I'd +1 that so many times if I could. That was well said my friend.

Rancher, I prefer 1v1 PPSC :)

LOL! @2WL, I love it! What'she point of 2 player PPSC? To give one point to the other guy or get one point from the other guy? LOL!

"practice ... we talkin 'bout practice"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGDBR2L5kzI

Practive what? Tactics? Cause you ain't practicing your diplomatic skills or even your gunboat "communication." It's is purely a tactical and strategic game when played 1v1 and that is just a small part of Diplomacy.

So it's that time of the year again... let me find Eden's emergency doc with apt quotes for recurring threads.

I'm sorry you don't understand, but given our past interactions, I suspect you don't actually care and are just looking to waste my time. This conversation is considered resolved.

Zultar's response is quite cogent

Like a true diplomat, Calhamer chose his words quite carefully. I think one can read this article in many different ways, applying one's own bias and preference.

I don't think he is actually supporting altered victory conditions based on fewer SCs or a fixed end date. That sentence goes on to state "except for the fact that such low victory criteria are unusually subject to threats to throw the game to one country or another". Based on the context of the preceding sentences, it would seem that his point is that the 18 SC victory condition results in an awfully long game, and that his hope would be that the game could be settled quicker by reduced victory conditions. However he acknowledges the fatal flaw in such an approach, in that the game would be immensely affected by such altered conditions.

The map supports many 17 SC stalemate lines. Calling the game when a player has reach any less than 18 would give away many solos in situations that should be draws. Similarly, declaring a winner based on size after fixed period has elapsed would similarly turn many drawn positions into easy solos. Putting a time limit on a game would also have the perverse affect of fundamentally altering the strategy of the game. Players would not need to play toward sustainable positions or those that put them on course for 18, but rather race to grow to be the largest by the time the deadline is up, even if that means taking on positions that would ultimately collapse should the game had continued.

I don't believe that Calhamer is actually proposing these alternatives, but rather in a diplomatic manner pointing out their limitations without explicitly deriding them.

@Draugnar - "practive", is that related to "proactive" or something?

keepin' it real though, 1v1s are just BS timekillers, nothing more, nothing less, 2ndWhiteLine and I have whiled away many a day with them and are neither better nor worse off for it!

@Zultar: I think there is definitely the "the way I play is better than you!" mentality, but where I find it the most disparaging is how we rank players regardless of the style of play.

I do believe gunboat and diplomacy are two very different games and should be ranked completely separate, especially because gunboats can run very quickly and there are a lot more 'fast' games allowing people to get many games under their belt (and live games also allow people to win games because of NMR's and CD's which frequent them).

WTA vs PPSC is the same thing. Because a 'strong second' is a mentality, there, it skews how it compares to WTA.

That is why I've always been a proponent of ranking in categories... and a bunch of them.
Really true ranking should be be broken into Gunboat/Public Press, Full Press. From there it should be split between WTA/PPSC, and finally split up between "Short/Live" phases (under 24 hours)/Regular phases (24 hours or more).

We can probably group WTA/PPSC next for a more "federated" list with fewest discrepancies.... but short/regular phases and Gunboat&PP/Full Press shouldn't ever be combined... they is too many descrepancies.

Of course, I've not done the math on any of those to prove it out, just know where the amount of games you can play (live vs normal phases) and 'unique/unfair advantages' (like a person leaving a live game, which gives some an advantage over others) is more common and know how that skews the game.... and that doesn't include how vastly different gunboats and normal press are.

I haven't even mentioned variants or how corruption/cheating is more likely in some games over others... variants are their own beasts, though, and I think should be removed from scoring altogether. It just seems like 'fun' things to play and shouldn't be ranked....

Honestly, it'd be nice to setup a game with a 'rank' flag and a 'non-rank' flag... so you can play games without fear of TGR being affected... it'd probably end up in crazier starts and experimentation instead of the same old, same old...

@everyone
Sorry, I don't mean to beat a dead horse by bringing this topic back up again. I know that this discussion has been had repeatedly, and I think Zultar's response quite lucidly hits the nail on the head.

Anyways, I just thought the article was quite interesting, as it's the word of Calhamer, and I hadn't seen it before. Maybe someone else has cited it before on this site in one of the endless series of preceding discussions, but I had never seen it posted on this site.

whip! whip! whip!... "moooooo"

I think FortKnox has a good point as well...

Everything is fine and dandy when things are just a game and people are having fun, but when it comes to making comparisons and computing those silly rankings that everyone seems to care so much about, we had better separate our apples from our oranges.

haha. checkmate, ppsc n00bz

"whip! whip! whip!... "moooooo" " - Rancher

Coming from a guy named Rancher, this quote is priceless!