On 8/2/20 3:07 PM, Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion wrote: > > On 8/2/2020 10:47 AM, Publius Scribonius Scholasticus wrote: >> This has been a fun tournament and I look forward to hearing about >> everything I couldn't see. If you would like to give feedback privately, >> feel free to reach out; if you would like to give feedback or share >> information with the public but anonymously, also contact me and I will >> share it as long as it isn't problematic, offensive, or personal. > > First, thanks for running this! It was a lot of fun. > > Some initial thoughts to share: > > 1. A huge amount of action was on Discord for this (6/7 countries were > there and therefore much/most of the actual diplomacy). This would have > been a very different game if it was email-only. > > 2. Early on, several players commented "I have never/haven't for a long > time played Diplomacy, I kind of want to play it straight". There was a > lot of brainstorming of clever new mechanics early on (airplanes! > fortresses! spies! etc.) but a majority just wanted to play Dip at > first, and early proposals got voted down unless they were clarifications > or bugfixes.
This is interesting to find out. If anyone wanted to play another round of this, either completely separate from Agora or as a Free Tournament, either way potentially inviting people from BN to fill out a game, I'd be happy to GM it. > > 3. So years 1901-1903 at least were nearly 100% classic diplomacy. > Probably lots of interesting stories to tell here about who was trusting > whom when!!! > > 4. However, what no one noticed (or at least mentioned) was that the win > condition *wasn't* classic diplomacy. Classic diplomacy win is to own > more than half the supply centers (18+). This tournament had "eliminate > everyone else" as a win condition which is next-to-impossible with > straight Dip rules (with many board positions leading to stalemates making > it literally impossible). It turns out that this was actually an interesting mistake I made. This came from modifying rules from the previous FRC Birthday Tournaments. I didn't actually realize it until a few years in, but I think it led to some interesting gameplay. I'm not sure whetehr or not it would be best to keep in a future rendition. > > This led to a puzzle, once the classic Dip play made some definite "ahead" > and "behind" players (by around 1904-05). At that point, there were 4 > strong contestants, in a situational 3 against 1 alliance. In classic > Dip, with the 18+ Center win condition, the alliances would very possibly > have shifted again around now (to make it 2 against 2 perhaps, there was > some diplomacy leading towards that). > > But with proposal voting and "elimination" as the win condition, it went a > little differently. > > The puzzle can be shown like this: > > - If it came down to 2 surviving players, the game was unwinnable, only a > tie was possible. > > - So if you were down to 3 players of similar size (i.e. Austria, Italy, > Russia), then you know that as soon as one of you is gone, it's a tie. > > - Since it's headed to a tie anyway, all three have an incentive to either > vote for a 3-way tie, or vote 2/1 to make 2 winners and 1 loser. But that > 2/1 vote would be arbitrary and anyone could be the loser, and in fact if > you were the strongest of the 3 you might have more chance of being > eliminated with a vote. So there's a perverse incentive there. > > - So if you're at 4 players, and you're a group of 3 of them in a > situational alliance, it's better to just vote for a 3-way tie then take > the risk of being the "loser" of a 2/1 vote after player 4 is eliminated. > > So that's how the game ended... > > Thanks for sharing these thoughts! It's really interesting to hear about it from the inside. -- ---- Publius Scribonius Scholasticus, Herald, Referee, Tailor, Pirate Champion, Badge of the Great Agoran Revival, Badge of the Salted Earth
