"Winners know it don't mean shit how you play if you got your clock cleaned."

Draugnar, this is ridiculous. Nobody is born a winner, you must learn and grow. It absoluetly matters how you play, even if you get your clock cleaned, because you will never get better if you don't care how you play when you are getting your clock cleaned. Practice makes perfect and when you start out at something you are going to be relatively bad at it, so the only way to get better is to care how you play while you get your clock cleaned.

Also, winning is relative. High school football players that are winners will get their clock cleaned in college if they don't care how they play, so even people that are good at something should care how they play even if they are winning.

To me, there is a lot of chance involved in the end result, so even though my skill can influence the end result to some extent, I focus much more on how I play and what I do (or do not do) and evaluate that much more than the end result since I know I can play poorly and win, just like I can play great and get my ass kicked.

@MadMarx - if you start out at something with others who are also starting out then you are on even footing. And I didn't say you shouldn't learn from your mistakes playing. But that phrase "It's not whether you win or lose..." is said to make losers feel better. My motto is, always examine what you did, learn from it, and do better next time. "...how you play the game" doesn't encourage learning. It encourages settling for mediocrity. And I again say that is total BS.

Draugnar, you're coming off as really negative and solely caring about winning. This phrase, at least how I read it, is not meant to encourage settling for mediocrity, it's meant to not focus on the end result and take responsibility for how you played the game. If you did the best you could and still lost, that's okay, but you then need to "examine what you did, learn from it, and do better next time", that's what "how you played the game" refers to, the way I see it. If you played the game crappy, learn from that, figure out how to not play crappy, then practice not playing crappy. If you played well, and still lost, figure out how to play even better. I also think if you win, don't be happy with that, you still need to examine, learn and do better. The end result is a bit of a side note compared to how the game was actually played, though those things are often correlated, which is why some people get over-focused on the end result rather than how they played the game.

Seems like we have similar thoughts, but that you enjoy calling people "losers", saying things like "Winners know it don't mean shit how you play...", and being an attention whore in general. :-P

"El Presidente, do you have to major in a specific area/period of history? If so, which one?"

I don't, actually. LSU makes us take some courses introducing Western history to us (a sequence on American history and on either European or world history), but beyond that I have a lot of freedom to take what I want.

The first was a bit of trolling to get the conversation flowing. But I do honestly feel that trite saying is like patting someone on the back and saying "it's OK, you did your best" when you should be saying "you did you best now, but let's figure out what you did wrong so you can do better next time". I have no problem with losing. It happens. Hell, look at my record. But I look at each game (win, lose or draw) as a learning opportunity, which is why I have started getting a win every month and much fewer eliminations or survives.

your recent statement is in direct opposition to your previous one, you know.

It is in opposition to my trolling initial statement. But it is *not* in opposition to the statement that I think the trite statement "It's not whether you win or lose..." is just comforting the loser but not encouraging them to win. The connotation of that statement is "It's OK, you tried." and not "You tried your best, now let's make you better." If you just use that statement you do a disservice to the person on the receiving end. You have to follow up with encouragment to look to what they did and look for ways to improve it.

And in Diplomacy, the game itself is a game of lying and backstabbing and doing everything within the game to get an advantage and win. This game is not for the meek who want everyone to feel like winners.

But finding a way to improve, whether within the game or outside of it. is in itself a victory.

Agreed. I'm just saying the old statement doesn't encourage improving one's game.

Draugnar, I suppose it boils down to how the "loser" interprets the statement and how the "loser" responds. Personally, if I gave all I had and lost, it didn't bother me too much because it was all I could do at the moment and I knew within myself that I was relatively competitive and would respond by trying very hard to get better, but I responded that way when I won as well, never satisfied with the result because I didn't focus on the result, I focused on me getting better and how I played the game. Kind of like golf, I don't compete against anyone else, just against myself. Anyway, I think encouragement and a positive attitude are good ways to help one improve their game, and without it, people may get frustrated to the point of giving up and not trying/playing any more.

Encouragment, yes. Coddling, no.

Thank you for the thread. I am trying to be a little away from Diplomacy nowadays, having too many games that I must finish. In some of them I did things I regret, and I wish I wouldn't. Yes, I often operate from guilt.

I think that I will finish all my games before hitting the "reset" button and starting playing according to the way I used to play when I first joined the site. Although stabbing around does bring some good results, it is not as fun as allying can be.

I think one can learn a lot from Diplomacy about real world, and especially real world organizations.

Because the game doesn't work if people don't try to win. If you play a game of diplomacy with people who don't try to win, you'll know its no fun.

I guess I'm not obsessed with winning itself, but with trying to win.

Hmmm, Draugnar, I don't remember coddling... but maybe my dad's approach made more of an actual impression than my mom's approach. I remember after a game of t-ball, my dad's only question would be, "How many home runs did you hit?" To his defense, as a 6-year-old, I could often find a gap in the outfield most every game, and it wasn't rare for me to find more than one gap in a game, but the times when I didn't hit a home run it really made me feel like a failure... and perhaps motivated me a bit more the next game...

Ghost, I think I equate "how I play the game", as my focus, with your focus of "trying to win". The end result isn't so much the concern, but the journey...

You're welcome.
I try to educate you morons with a little Kohlberg, and I get crickets.
Fine.
Die ignorant.

While one should try to win, the ends don't justify the means.

In Dip, they just might. Unless of course the means are clear violations of the meta/multi rules. ;-) J/K

I play the game to learn. I've noticed that the advanced tactical, strategical and psychological genius required to win this game helps in many places in life. In order to learn from mistakes a clear goal must be set in mind, otherwise it would be impossible to determine what is and isn't an error.

I have a series of 3 goals: The first is to win; capture 18 centres. Should this be impossible, the secondary goal would be to cause a draw; stop everybody else from gaining 18 centres. If this becomes impossible the tertiary goal is to get as many supply centres as I can and avoid total defeat.

What I find to be important is not the outcome, nor the moves required to achieve it, but rather the methodology and logic behind my actions and how to improve it.