Polar Bear is the most underrated player I've ever had the pleasure of playing with. Don't know if he's still on the site.

I can understand how using like as an interjection has found it's place in speech. It's not too different to people saying 'uuh' or 'umm' but how the hell does it creep into your, like, typing?

^Actually, not an interjection. I should stick to number. Not words.
But the point still stands.

@Yonni
The true meaning of this interjection may not be totally clear for people for whom english is not a native language, so be more tolerate, if you don't mind. What I wanted to express was that talent is not always shown by percentage of w/d/l, so word "talented" has a part of figurative meaning.

Ah, wasn't trying to be mean. Just bewildered that you'd take the time to type it.

The stiffest competition I've faced is probably from Cachimbo. I was still fairly new to the game at the point so my reverence may be a little skewed. I'm sure I'll play another game with him when he comes back and see if it's for real.

I'm not sure if you know of the Ghost Rating system, but that's often what people use to judge talent.

I think the " ..., like,.." was not so much an interjection as it was a subliminal instruction to +1 this thread. That being said, I believe "Boner" is actually the most talented multi of Diplomat33.

@Yonni
Yes, I know about Ghost Rating, but I've spoken about percentage. Well and you also satrted talking about impressions, okay.
@redhouse1938
Noise.

@Yonni, I agree about Cachimbo, he's a skilled player. I suppose since nobody's listed the obvious I'll mention that I've been thoroughly trounced by MadMarx, Babak, and rdrivera2005, though the player who impressed me the most was djbent. Who, sadly, doesn't seem to play here any longer.

In no particular order, from those I've played:

Dave Bishop
MadMarx
Babak
Tom Bombadil
Cachimbo
...

There are other less-known persona I've faced that have impressed me, and other "good" Diplomats, but not "all-star" diplomats and others I've really enjoyed playing with, but they're too numerous to bother typing them all (and I might forget someone!).

But that would be for my all-star class ;0p

And Yonni, it doesn't look like Cachimbo will come back, or at least, he won't for a *big* while. He's too busy playing Skyrim it seems!!!

Anlari played the best game I have ever seen on this site. They way he manipulated the other players was almost beautiful to watch. Despite seeing what he was up to early on there was nothing I could do to stop him. Every diplomatic move I made was thwarted, and every (increasingly desperate) unit manouver was countered. It was truly stunning...

As far as I am concerned Stripy is the best player whom I have had the pleasure of playing with. Agent K and MKECharlie are two others who have not been mentioned here.

The mastergamer was a top players, but I haven't seen him in a while. My list include madmarx, crazyter, babak, rdrivera2005, thewizard, Jacob, uclabb, ivo ivanov, ike, langaiden, dunecat.... I'm sure I'm missing several...

In what was tied for my first game on this site, Zultar masterfully stonewalled both my allies and myself as Germany. Not only did he have multiple powers working in his interests from the beginning, but he tirelessly sabotaged the alliances later formed against him. He literally lost Munich only to talk one of the invading powers into handing it back to him the next turn, and talked his way into a four-way draw after losing Munich a second time (and Berlin as well).

Wow, I have never heard of that particular description of the game Tasnica is mentioning before. I remembered this game vividly and I can tell you that I was working my ass off to make sure that Tasny here does not manipulate everyone to do his bidding and then solo the damn game. I was trying to survive after England's fall.
Thanks for putting a positive spin on it. :)

Thanks for the shout out, Lando. I was going to mention you here as well.

Lando Calrissian is really good at one of the most necessary skills in this game: the ability to not get emotional about moves that don't go your way, and the ability to re-negotiate things according to changing conditions. I don't know why he plays so many gunboats, but that's just my (full press) bias.

I've also enjoyed playing with JesusPetry, urallLESBlANS, and, recently, BlackKnight (with whom I was rocking a great I/T alliance before we cancelled due to a CD-ing Austria).

This thread isn't about gunboats but I think that vamosrammstein is the most underrated gunboat player around.

Thanks MKE, those are kind words.

Well, the players that impressed me most are MadMarx, Babak, Dejan0707 and TheWizard in no particular order. They belong to another level.
There are other very good players on this site and I won´t start telling names as I will forgot someone, but against this four fine diplomats I always feel like a political puppet :-)

I've been very impressed with Babak and MM. MM's posts (+1 to games where his pms go global) are fascinating. Babak style of play is very strong and probably what I would most strive to emulate next time I venture into a full press game (slow pace).

I must say, I've played with Lando in full press (no gunboats, though) a few times over the past few months, and he has always been impressive. I've been on the short end every time T_T

I also think Cachimbo is one of the better ones I've been up against. I'm going to give some love to Hellenic Riot as well, and IndyBroughton of People Not Mentioned Previously.

But personally, I super suck at this game, so what do I know? :)

Hah, I distinctly remember the game Tasnica and zultar are mentioning, and I think all three of us have quite vivid-- and vastly different-- recollections of this game. Both of you were quite loyal allies as Germany and Austria respectively, and I had to make the uncomfortable choice of stabbing one... so, naturally, I stabbed zultar, then Tasnica, then zultar, then Tasnica, four successive turns in a row, all while fearing that the two of them would gang up on me. I think all three of us were terrified of survival in that one. For my part, I think everyone agreed that I was pretty hapless.

zultar, Tasnica, I'd be quite interested in a second round some time!

There are many who have impressed me, but some of the more memorable experiences are with Crazyter who both manhandled me in the game we played while almost making me feel good about giving her all my SCs, and peterwiggin who sadly hasn't played here in a long while. The influence which he had over the other players was remarkable. He always knew what was going on and was seemingly behind all of the decisions during the game. In my limited participation on this site, his play was most impressive to me.

Others who have already been mentioned but I can further attest to are Cachimbo, rdrivera2005 and jmo1121109. Every time I play with them I end up learning how to step my game up in some way.

I AM THE GREATEST DIPLOMACY PLAYER EVER (or, at least I am in one of the alternate universes predicted by the infinite worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics).

I would say that there is many talented diplomats on this sire and from my experience: rdrivera2005, President Eden, martinck1, The Hanged Man are certainly among the best.

President Eden tends to always get my trust and then smash me

Errr....

In the midst of a fairly difficult period in my life (where, indeed, Skyrim has been my main go to game), I passed by the site for the first time in quite some time and took a look at the forum. Seeing this thread, I was curious to see if it had been properly trolled off its tracks or if people had actually listed a few players. I was expecting to see the household names, and hoping that a few more discreet yet fun and talented players would make the list. But I never, not for one second, expected to see my name anywhere on here, and those of you who have mentioned it do me much more honour than I deserve. Regardless: thanks for keeping me in mind all the same! You've made me giggle when I thought it virtually impossible to do so. I'm touched.

I will otherwise say this: I believe I've been fairly explicit with players I've come to respect on this site, telling them straight out at the end of a game or in some other context. Those of you who have played me know that I love stiff competition that comes in the shape of intelligent and friendly gamesmanship. Not everybody here has the type of intelligence that can pull solos every couple of games or so, but that doesn't mean that they are any less difficult to play. All that to say, though some names are obvious, others are less so, and any listing would likely keep silent on some that ought to be there. I will therefore keep from posting my own list, confident that the dozen or so of fantastic players I've had the chance to play know how much I respect them, all the while knowing that there has to be twice that amount of fantastic players here I've yet had the chance to play.

As for my return...

Slyster paints much too grim a picture. Expect this obscure Brazilian city name to appear on this website again in not too long.

Until then, I wish all I know well.
And to those who don't know me: tremble before my imminent return! ;-)

Thanks again for the giggles!

What kinda weak BS is this, Cachimbo? If you got names, you share them. Don't be coy. Ooooh, there was this good player that I played with, ooooh, but I am too modest to name them because I soloed his ass in a game, oooooh, stiff competition. ;)

Welcome back, Cachimbo. :)

There are a lot of good players but the one that impressed me was TheMasterGamer.

That's why Cachimbo's such a good diplomat. He just said absolutely nothing but let everyone imply whatever they wanted to hear.

I agree, hellalt. TMG hasn't been on in a while, but he was fun to watch!

So to the important point - How IS SKYRIM??? Very close to a purchase...

Skyrim gets a ton of positive press in my circles, who tend to be very harsh judgers of games. I've not played it, though.

Man, I just looked at TMG's profile. What a beast.

Skyrim is fun, but it gets stale after a while, especially if you plan out your character and work on smithing and enchanting. When you wear fully decked out dragon armors with double enchantments, things just don't stay alive, even on the hardest setting.
A really fun and similar open world game but with the best action RPG I have played to date is Kingdoms of Amalur. You really should check that out.