Good lord. 1 pick per player, 81 armies per pick, 100% luck 1-day boot times and you expect me to play it? Pffffff

Open Game diplomacy games are almost always a failure especially real time. There is always at least one Public Enemy. Half the game gets booted. If it's real time, the ones who don't get booted will surrender because people have stuff to do in their life. There will be on average 1 experienced role player per game, and that is the role player that has not come to sense that open diplomacy games are bad. You spend more time occupying neutrals than anything interesting happening. When a good scenario is set up, there will be ways to wreck it. People don't read the rules, tons of noobs. Even with prereqs - just because someone is over level 20, doesn't mean they're any better than someone at level 10 - especially for diplomacy. There will be people who try to "win" diplomacy games.

Very few people in open games actually realise that diplomacy games are for the experience, and for fun. For recreating historical or fictional events. For making hypothetical, modern world, or futuristic events come together in a super-customisable game, where you can do what you want.

If you do want to have a good time playing diplomacy games - the two best hosts I recommend are Omega, and Pie. (The circles are also not bad :D ) They have a whole host of different scenarios waiting to dish out, and invite a bunch of friends to. People rarely get booted - leaving a huge opportunity for large scale wars, or cold war-esque huge series of proxy wars. The scenarios range allowing many different events to occur. One day you're Austria, the next you're Scotland.

Joining a clan is also a great idea. Inter-clan diplomatic games happen all the time (if you're in any good diplomacy clan :/ ) You are in a place where there are people who are interested in the same game types as you, where you play together without the fear of a Public Enemy, or massive amounts of people getting booted.

(Also this is not to say that strategic games are bad. They're also great!)

'There will be people who try to "win" diplomacy games.'

Hold on... is there not supposed to be a "winner" of diplomacy games? I thought these were supposed to be like the board game Diplomacy, with negotiation and backstabbing so that eventually you rule the world.

I understand there are PE rules and people should follow them, but if someone turns PE and threatens smaller nations so that they also become PE that seems like a pretty sound way to play.

^^^^^

'There will be people who try to "win" diplomacy games.'

Hold on... is there not supposed to be a "winner" of diplomacy games?

Hold on... is there not supposed to be a "winner" of diplomacy games? I thought these were supposed to be like the board game Diplomacy, with negotiation and backstabbing so that eventually you rule the world.

This is what I think, but when I mention this, that diplomacy is all about picking off others one by one, folk say "Oh, no, it's all about the roleplay! Gosh, that's so barbaric." Not all, but some.

In my opinion, diplomacy games are always done best when there are predetermined slots. Agreed?

Due to this, diplomacy games cannot be balanced.

Therefore, if the point of diplomacy games is to win - that makes them an extended lottery, which is not fun. The people who have strong slots have much larger chances of winning, making it unfair against the people who have smaller slots. No it is not all about the role play. There are some strategic wars to a certain extent. Not strategic because it is balanced, but because it takes good negotiation skills to form alliances, and make sure these alliances are trustworthy, and solid. Wars can easily turn tides if an alliance with a country is made, which escalates the war, and makes it more enjoyable.

If you want to win games - play strategically.

I find a big issue is that people distrust big nations. I've had dozen people declare war on me at the same time for being a large nation.

There are "diplomacy" games that are played for fun. They're called intra-clan games.

In a scale from most toxic to least toxic, all sorts of diplos:

Open Real Time
Open Multi-day
All members invited by someone
Clan-only/inter-clans multi-day

There's a reason to this - people get booted/surrender frequently in real-times (naturally, sometime you just can't stay). And as stated, there is a winner for diplomacy, even though that isn't the point of the game. In any kinds of open games, you'll be getting people who do not care about enjoying the game and will only desire to win, which is natural in fact.

Ideally, you'll want to:

>Make sure you are in a clan and have them invite you frequently
>Try to avoid real-times
>When you do play real-times, make sure most/all superpower countries are either you or someone you trust or have seen playing and you know he's good
>Add high prerequisites to your games (I like adding level 5+ to avoid alts and boot rate under 60%, people like Genghis like even bigger ones)

Sometimes, in my posh, rule-intensive multiday diplomacies, I add L6+ and Bootrate under 25%.

But normally, it's L3+ and Bootrate under 50%.

I find a big issue is that people distrust big nations. I've had dozen people declare war on me at the same time for being a large nation.

If you are larger than average on turn 1, then you automatically have gained an advantage and a lesser player must remove you as early as possible. This is because a) removing you will lower the average, making their stake comparatively more powerful than previously, and b) if you are not removed, then you stand to grow at a rate faster than the average. Therefore it is not distrust or even anything remotely emotional; it is simple logic. They must remove you before you can remove them.

Diplomacy is not a logic game.

That said, I also did not threaten any players and never made moves to expand outside of my natural borders of Italy (I was playing as Rome).

Diplomacy is not a logic game.

Warlight, however, is.

I'd argue Diplomacy is a logic-based game. Not entirely, but has large elements of it. I agree with Zephyrum's toxicity scale, and basically all of what he said.

WarLight is a psychology - mathematics game.

i was fascinated with the idea of diplos when i first learned about them.

on a meta level (and considering the essence of diplos, not the reality) it is entirely in the subject of logic. it closely resembles an iterated prisoners dilemma, where turn after turn you make the decision to cooperate or defect from the group. sometimes it pays to betray an ally, or declare war on a smaller country solely for expansion. but if you do it too much then it sows discord and you become more likely to be attacked.

of course you are playing against fallible humans, who usually don't respond to logic with logic, are usually gullible, emotional, and paranoid, and are likely to follow impulses, even if they are harmed by them.

the reality is very far from the idea.

so it turns out diplos are just politics, the person that is good at convincing people and is likable is usually better at diplomacy. being smart or logical almost doesn't factor in at all.

i suck at it cause i naively appeal to logic and then quit caring when it becomes obvious that only one or two players in the game have even a tiny grasp of logic.

or i go all the way to the emotional side and base my actions entirely on my real life conception of right and wrong, always a sure loser in diplomacy.

i would still enjoy diplos if i could play against people that actually knew how to debate logically and used critical thinking to assess the game. and didn't roleplay. i think that shit is silly.

If I made an open game Diplo I would make sure of these things:

All starting incomes are within 20 of each other
I invite mostly people I know and trust and are decently good at the game.
Open seat prerequisites:
12% > boot rate
250 Multi-Day games completed
If I want it to move fast:
Average Multi-Day Speed 12 Hours

I have a very simple solution to your problem. What I do is create a diplomacy game, and find out what people don't follow the rules. The people that do and are very interested in diplomacy games I write them down on a word document. Then, I create a game with just those people. I have become good friends with most of them, and now almost every player in my diplomacy games follow the rules, and when one person doesn't, we all gangbang him. Send me a private message if you want to join one of my games, and you can see what it's like. I've created a my own community on warlight, and all of us know each other pretty well (on Warlight, I mean. We don't actually give out personal information). By the way, I create Game of Thrones Diplomacy games and scenarios, so if you don't like Game of Thrones, you won't want me to invite you to one of my games.

Edited 7/31/2015 03:39:39

Really, shyb? I think Roleplaying really makes the genre elevated.

But yes, I agree all the way.

Diplomacy runs a lot more fine-tuned the more rules and mechanics you add.

One system I personally like and use a lot is "Culture groups". Each nation starts out in a culture group. Each culture has a leader, and the rest are his vassals. Cultures can only align within each other. However, there can be cultural infighting.

It is really an easy patch or assimilation into a lot of systems. I.e. Medieval : Religion groups.

@ garrett
no offense, but your 49% boot rate makes me inclined not to believe you. go ahead and invite me to a game if you want, im happy to give you a chance anyway :)

@genghis, it's just my opinion, and my opinion should not be valued highly by anyone.

Edited 7/31/2015 03:44:41

@shyb No doubt, there's no sense in arguing about something trivial like that. It's just opinion.