Well, I was on this game, and what I can say it´s probably one of my worst game ever (first time I was defeated as England as far as I remember) and also that I was right guessing who is Germany....

About your question, I don´t think I qualify as GOOD player after this game, but will give my opinior anyway: You should have acepted the draw, the way you did. No one want to risk a sure draw (even a 5-way one) to risk being eliminated or giving you a solo. You did a good try, retreating your units, but there isn´t an easy way to eliminate one or two of the other powers without risk (well, maybe France, but yet it´s not worth the risk).

And by the way, I don´t want to know how much I have lost of my GR on this game :-)

That was a pretty stab of England. (Sorry rdrivera.)

You could have won. Possibly. Likely loss of moscow with a solid possibility of regaining it. Doesn't matter the remainer of france would have yielded a solid victory for you.

Your gr will go up tho don't worry.

I don't see the problem.

You were going to solo. an alliance stopped you. Attempts to fracture the alliance failed, so you moved in a way to reduce the draw size, since you had concluded it was inevitable.

They refused to play ball.

As Turkey said "Germany, we have all bonded in the process of rising up to stop your solo attempt and were all equally valuable in the effort. It's honestly pretty silly to take out another country or two, it's contrived and meaningless. We all stopped you together and we want a draw together to memorialize our actions."

In other words, you tried, you failed, the consequence is a draw larger than you like, because none of the surviving powers saw any point in wiping someone out just to benefit you - even if we ignore the possibility that you could rush back and solo after all while everyone was catfighting

Where's the dilemma? You played a damn good game, you got stalemated, you drew. A draw is a draw. Fully granting that you didn't gain as many points or as much of a GR advantage as you would have liked, it's not like the other players did something *wrong* by refusing to kill one another off...

Wow. I was so sure I knew who every player was, but I was so wrong!

MadMax! What the heck? Why did you bring Austria back to life when we were working together? And what was with that build?

If Austria and Turkey were part of an alliance aimed at stopping a German solo, why didn't they take Munich/Moscow which were left wide open? What a weird game.

@Jamie - it wasn't necessary. Germany pulled back to entice just those moves in an attempt to fracture the balance of power, either to encourage enough infighting to eliminate a player or two, or to open the way for another attempt at the solo

Babak, its the G-Ratings when the game ends that I use (for ease of implementation only).

You do:

New Rating = Old Rating + S * (Result-Old Rating/S)/17.5

Where S = Sum of the ratings of all the players in the game.

But how do you compute Result, Ghost?

I think he said you got a small increase for a four way draw but a small decrease for a five way in a previous thread

1/n where n is the number of players in the draw.

Thanks.

So if you had a 400 rating and played a bunch of new 100 rating folks...

3 way draw = 400 + 1000*(.33-.4)/17.5 = 400 - 60/17.5 = 400 - 3.43 = 396.57

Of course that is extreme (a 400 GR playing a bunch of n00bs).

More realistic... I am just shy of 200. I am about to draw a game with 6 players (one went CD early on and we want him punished with the black mark on his record).

I don't know their rankings but lets say they are n))bs (they aren't so this isn't as realistic as that game).

200 + 800*(.16 - (200/800))/17.5
200 + 800*(.16-.25)/17.5
200 + 800*(-.09)/17.5
200 - 72/17.5
200 - 4.11
195.89

There is a good chance the top GR in that game will lose GR for that draw.

Stem game drag?

Now is our actual ranking number our great number because last month I was 512 but I expect it to go up dramatically seeing as it was my first month and I have of late multiplied my points by 8 and tripled my solo record

Yeah, STEM. I am hardly the highest there and will probably make GR out of the draw, but it is pretty rotten that someone might well lose even just a few points for doing the right thing.

I'm just hoping that I am remembering correctly and Ghost doesn't dogames that lasted less than a couple of years or had quick CDs in calculating the new GR.

ok lots to say... first about the GR...

Ghost - I'm still confused. I thought it was simply that each person puts in 5% (1/20) of their total GR into a pot. then the winner or drawers take their share out of that pot. is that completely incorrect?

I want to figure out 4 games I've been in and figure out what I gained/lost in each of those games... and I'm not understanding the forumla yet =(


as for the game - Turkey's critique was that I grew too quickly and forced them all to ally. but in fact, I had AH and R on my side - but made the mistake of not taking out AH in Vie when I thought I had a shot...

but more importantly - my question is... should I have NOT gone after F (who was begging me to leave him alone) and gone east first? I dunno...

basically - something like 10 or 12 out of the last 20 games (and I think 6 of my 8 Masters games) I have been in a position of 15-17 dots and NOT able to break the damn alliance arrayed against me (usually only 2 or 3 others... this was a weird case with 4 of them at 4-5 dots ... but its because they were all good players. I mean look at that set-up... they protected themselves against stabbing each other so damn well)

What I'm saying is... I want some serious advice or suggestions on how I can take my game to that next level... which is to convert more of these 15-17 dot draws into solos. Any ideas, suggestions, thoughts, experiences, etc that you all may have would be great.

all for the purpose of letting me beat you the next time we play ;)

@ abge - who did you think was who?
@ President of Eden - thank you. I thought that was one of my better ever stabs
@ strat - the dilemma I'm trying to find an answer to, is what I could have done to get a better result that game.

@ MM - I must say - hats off to you once more good sir. you have bested me once more even when I get 3 times as many sc's as you =(

I thought you and davebishop were switched.

I thought Turkey was martinck and I thought Austria was MM, controlling him like a puppet.

Honestly, I don't know what happened,l but I couldn't diplom with Turkey for the life of me.

@Babak - In August 1903, you had eight SCs, with the prospect of getting two more from England almost immediately. The next largest player had six. At that point *I'd* certainly start setting up a coalition against you, so I guess the only thing you could have done was hold off on your stab until there was a viable #2 power who might be tempted to race you to 18. Otherwise the logical thing for the others to do is unite against you while they still can.

Babak, that is kinda an equivalent way of looking at it. It is in fact 1/17.5 of your rating that goes into the pot.

i'm wondering the same thing babak... its just so hard to take strong positions to solos in high profile WTA games... I really don't know how to get around that problem.
It seems to me that everyone is so (understandably) pre-cautious and safe that even if you make a perfectly timed stab and bid for solo, and plan it really well so you got units over stale mate lines, you still need more to solo.

Normally its a massive blunder from another player, or weaker player supporting someone to a solo that allows a solo to take place

Random comments on everything said so far:

@Babak: Dang, you are really addicted to the Ghost Ratings, can't you just wait to find out?! ;-) Plus, you can't know what everyone's GR is after the day it's posted, GR's change every day based on new games that finish, though you can get a good estimate if you really can't wait for the next months update. Hmmm, maybe Ghost should set up a site that instantly updates GR after each game finishes!!

@ strat: I'd argue that Babak did not play a darn good game as I don't believe a draw is a draw. A five-way draw is NOT a good outcome for the position this German had earlier in the game.

@abgemacht: I'll send you a message in-game, in response, I see no need to discuss in public. :-)

@strat: How your GR fluxuates varies, I recently wrapped up a three-way draw with TGM and I lost over 10 of GR, so it's not quite as clear cut as it may appear.

@Draug: It's okay to lose GR for "doing the right thing", I think over time it will sort itself out, especially since it is merely a rating system and should be more about documenting a collection of past performances rather than an encouragement of how to play out a single game.

@Babak: To estimate your change in GR, add up the total GR of all players in a game, divide by 17.5 to get the total GR in the pot. Divide that number by how many people were in on the draw and that's how much gets added to your GR, but make sure you subract out 1/17.5 of your own GR since that's how much you put in the pot (and lost) to start with. Again, this is just an estimate since you don't know anyone's GR this time of month, it can be much different than it was the last time GR's were posted.

Hmmm, this one's getting long, I'll type more in a minute...

@Babak: I hope someone tells you how to solo more often, I'd love to know how as well, I think we all would. I think it is obvious you grew too fast and forced a Grand Alliance, so it's clear to me you didn't play well in that respect (as far as getting a solo), which is not to say I know you should have played it to get a solo. Often times it is easy to point out what someone has done "wrong" and much more difficult to point out what would have been "right".

@Babak: Hats off?! I'm not a fan of a five-way draw, but suppose it is fun to frustrate you, especially when I don't know it's you!! :-P

@ab: Again, I'll discuss your ability to diplom with me/Turkey personally, though I have to run soon, so maybe tomorrow.

@dave bishop: I read somewhere that every "good" game of diplomacy should end in a draw, so maybe the answer is to not play a good game of diplomacy?

As a related topic, please see the new forum thread:

http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?newsendtothread=612844&viewthread=612844

Why on earth were the last few turns played with minimalist moves? Why did Babak stop advancing when he hit Iberia? Why did this game end in a 5wd!?

@MM

Thanks,

I look forward to it.

@ava

Germany couldn't advance anymore. He fell back, hoping to get the FIAT alliance to fall apart.

Ah I see the stalemate now. I didn't see the Italian support of MAR previously. But still, with a fourth fleet in BRE maybe might have been able to?

Everything was jammed up. As long as Italy supported him, there was no way he was getting through.