Zenvue, I also play Age of Civilizations! :D

OxTheAutist you are cancer.

There's nothing wrong with being a brutal warmonger.

@Vengence
@Prussian Monarchist

Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia - Polish clay ;)

Oh, also space.

+1 Karl

We all know Lithuania was the predominate power.

The more and more I play Diplos the more I realise the complexities that come just from the expectations of each player.

Everyone is right to a degree, warmongering can be fun, but being crushed by 10 players isn't always fun.

In a perfect world people could just accept that some games will go well, and some will go bad, no matter how nice you play sometimes everyone will just kill you for no clear reason. But perhaps this is just part of Diplos and even PEs are something we just need to accept, take on the chin and move on.

But I also feel that really, people with these different expectations should just try and play Diplos together. ie: Seperate Diplos into more catagories, those that allow alliances and back-stabbing, those that are happy with war-mongering, those like me who prefer a more easy-going casual game with smaller localised wars.

TL;DR: The main problem, and the point I want to make though is that there is simply not enough Diplo players for us to all get what we want out of the game.

Edited 6/16/2016 19:53:07

"Diplombacy for Dumbies".

Hehe!

I agree with Fleecemaster.

There are so many different ways to play a "diplomacy", and people don't seem to realize that.

For instance, people try to limit aggression (complex declaration rules and so forth, which limit you from making war) and they want to attack "warmongers".

Well, as a thought experiment, would you be happy with a game where no one ever attacks anyone?

If not, why not?

(And if you say 'no', but speak poorly of 'warmongers', you might want to examine your position a little more critically. The word 'hypocrisy' comes to mind... your games wouldn't work without some of these 'warmongers' in them!)

Ultimately, for such a specialized mode of play, you need to play with a group of people who have created a consistent culture of play and implicitly understand who it works. That's pretty difficult with a bunch of strangers, but much easier if you always play with the same people. Just be prepared for 'growing pains'.

---

Ultimately, the game you play should support what you're trying to do. Rules matter, here. Want a super-friendly game? Change the defense/offense ratio *drastically* in favour of the defender (say, 10% offense, 90% defense). It will work much better than writing a long list of "Declaration" rules in ALL CAPS and then yelling at people for forgetting them in the middle of the game, trust me...

Most Diplomacy games I've seen do NOT support the style of play at all. Hence all the threads complaining about them! It's clear cause and effect.

Anyone who has played the actual boardgame "Diplomacy" would see very quickly how the rules of that game create a very specific style of play. You don't need "rules" - just a game which naturally encourages the sort of play you want as the most effective way of playing it.

Here's some more good discussion and reading on this topic, if you're curious in my point of view:

https://www.warlight.net/Forum/107248-diplomacy-gamemode-warlight

Edited 6/16/2016 21:10:29

Here's another post I made on this topic a while back:

The problem with Diplomacy games in Warlight isn't the game system... it's the artificial rules which have grown up around the style of play.

Rules for declaring alliances, wars, PEs, and so forth, are counter-intuitive, inconsistently applied, and vary from game to game.

Speaking as a game designer, they're poorly thought out.

The "typical" Warlight diplomacy game is most likely to end in bickering and arguments than a solid and fun game experience, for these reasons.

Most importantly, any "official" version of the game settings (like suggested here) will not only be incredibly hard to code (they leave all kinds of possible edge-scenarios where games can't end, don't interface with AI modes, etc, etc) but WILL NOT SATISFY EVERYONE. Each diplomacy game is different.

To really "fix" diplomacy games, you need a smooth and workable set of rules which lead to fun games instead of bickering. (Yes, there are fun diplomacy games: those exist because of good players who know to avoid their downsides, not because the procedures are well thought-out. The current set of "rules" generally tend to break down, given average/typical players.)

They also lead to games which are 90% boredom, and a high boot/surrender rate as a result.

How could you do it better?

A good start would be a system for players to change their name in-game. This way, players could name themselves according to their country/faction, and alliances could declared. For instance, your name in a European diplomacy game might be:

"[FRANCE] - AXIS POWERS - {PlayerName1}"

Later, you could change it to "[FRANCE] - Neutral - {PlayerName1}".

Some kind of "board" where current states of recognized alliances and wars can be posted would help a great deal.

A more flexible messaging system, where you can easily group and/or remove players from conversations.

Always use an army cap, so people who sit around and do nothing are not rewarded for it.

Rules for declaration of war and PEs need to go - they're ludicrous.

Instead, in a Diplomacy game where "peace" is the presumed status quo - a terrible and boring convention for a game called Warlight, but if you really insist on having that... - there should be an in-game group or coalition which acts as a sort of "United Nations". This Peace Coalition sets and enforces rules, like punishing unjust wars. They can certainly declare a player "Public Enemy", if they wish - but if players do not agree or support this decision, they'll have to go to war or suck it up.

This makes things much more interesting: a player might be interested in subverting the coalition, for instance, by secretly "signing off" on an undeclared surprise attack. When the victim of the attack turns to the coalition for help, they're denied. Oh no! What happened behind the scenes?

Then other players find out about it, and they form a rebellion against the Peace Coalition.

Now, that would be an exciting game, and with none of these silly arguments which crop in almost every diplomacy game.

And - more importantly - it would require almost no changes to the game engine.

[Ok, getting off the soapbox now...]

Some great stuff here. This should be pinned to the top of the topics list.

I'm loving the suggestions you made in that thread and in this one, Poireau! I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets annoyed at at least one person becoming a PE at the end of the first turn because they didn't read the rules >_>

I'm not a fan of the army cap myself but I think it could certainly liven up diplomacy matches...

Thanks, Tristan!

At some point I should post my Diplomacy template, which recreates the dynamics of the Diplomacy boardgame using some very weird settings. (For instance, it's almost useless to attack another player unless you have someone else's support, and long "sieges" are often in effect to take a city.) However, I'm sure a lot of people won't like it, simply because it is so *odd*.

I'd totally go for it ;D

It's normally very difficult to create sieges, which is a shame as they could be epic. I usually effectively begin a siege on a capital and end it a turn later because it's a simple matter of easily squashing resistance and moving into the territory. :/

To actually have to fight long and hard for the bloody thing would actually give a sense of achievement at the end. Like the long, painstaking hours of careful planning and complex strategies actually pay off. ;D

Mr. Poireau, you have the right ideas. +1

PE's really shouldn't be a thing, especially the "if you dont attack a PE, you are PE" rule.
Lets look at it like this, if a player did what the German Reich did in WW2, in Warlight. They would be called out as a PE but not everyone declared war on Germany and they weren't forced to either. So the PE rule isn't quite realistic in my opinion.

Indeed. Not just completely unrealistic, but also completely UNNECESSARY.

whatever your opinion is, it looks like everyone has a common ground: Some new features for diplomacy needs to be implemented, at least the name changing like Poireau suggested.

pretty sure all da dummies are the ones who actually waste their time playing stupid diplo games........

I spoke to another player about diplomacy functions I wonder if it could get abused if this was added across the board to all games inclusive of ffa, not just diplo

As a tertiary student of international relations, my passion for the diplomacy game mode stems out of it being as close as possible to an accurate simulation of what we call "liberalism" (tl;dr explanation - countries work together through alliances and institutions to defend themselves against undemocratic hegemonies and only enter into wars to defend each other and to install democratic values). I understand the "hegemony" in this case is the P.E., but my query is whether this alliance system can feasibly be implemented into the game whilst being abuse-free.

Edited 6/18/2016 06:51:36

From my perspective, I don't see how that is superior to just having an in-game Hegemony or coalition.

What do the alliances rules add to your simulation? How do they improve the game? They seem, to me, just to take away strategic options and the subtleties of negotiation, robbing the game of richness.

I think it's more that in the 21st century, alliances are somewhat binding and governments are subject to their own domestic audiences and the legislative branch, so when you do sign an alliance or agreement, you are bound to that to an extent. That "binding" nature of an alliance in my view is enforceable through a diplomacy function. Following from that, it means that an "alliance" can win a game together, rather than having to fight it out to one victor.

Interesting. I'm not sure I agree (there are many game design advantages to a single-victor model, and real-world governments are certainly capable of betrayal - not to mention that most diplomacy games aren't set on 21st-century Earth, which makes this point rather questionable - they tend to be about the downfall of Rome, World War I, or Game of Thrones...). Other than the possibility of an "alliance win", how does this improve the gameplay? (It seems to me that an alliance win can already be handled just fine via a Vote to End.*)

More importantly, we should be talking about gameplay functionality here (does the game work? is it fun?) rather than how "realistic" the rules are. Perhaps you are correct that some modern nations would find it difficult to go to war, but I think that if you went to a real-life leader of a country and explained "announce alliance, then give a turn's warning before attacking" as a rule, they would laugh in your face, not consider that a reasonable simulation of real-world politics. (Not to mention that the actual game of Warlight can hardly be said to resemble real-life war in any sense... realism is not a goal of this game's design, as simple as that.)

However, that reminds me of something: another Warlight player recently hosted a diplomacy game where each nation could announce what kind of government they were running under. A country which was run under a "Totalitarian" regime could attack without warning, but other types of countries could not. This was an interesting experiment! I didn't participate in the game, but I like the implications of being able to announce different governing structures in order to change your function in the game. ("After a recent election, France announces a shift from Communism to Totalitarianism. The Germans are worried.") That's some pretty interesting stuff to think about, and could lead to some fun game modes.


*: If people are worried about points ("I want my points!"), there are easier ways to do that. The simplest way would be to award points to remaining players upon a Vote to End, based on the number of winners and losers - e.g. two players surviving a 40-player FFA would get lots of points, five friends who vote to end after one of them drops out would get almost none. Much less complex than working out a system where an "alliance" can win and share points. (That kind of thing can be abused terribly, simply by creating games and then voting to end - or killing off one player, if necessary, and then voting to end - so an "alliance win" is not a great idea from a game balance perspective. Everyone will just create endless games just for points, and existing games will carry too much incentive to end prematurely. All in all, I think such rules are bound to cause more problems, and I would prefer to see diplomacy-style games where no one scores points as the norm.)

Edited 6/19/2016 06:35:47

Really, alliances should be dynamic. That way the game will always be changing, who has what power, through changes in alliances. I think this is quite advanced Diplomacy play though, and I find a lot of players struggle with it, often jumping to accusations "back-stabbing" and getting upset.

Also wars should not be scorned as much as they are, often I declare war with someone but with no real intention to attack and they sometimes lose their minds over it. There are complex levels to a Diplomacy game that perhaps is more subtle than I realise.

I try really hard to understand why certain players play the way they do, and sometimes I really just can't. Often a player will put all their resources into attacking a player because of some "gruge" when really they should be protecting their troop count. This kind of "suiciding" makes no sense if you're actually playing a game sensibly. But ultimatly I guess it's a lack of understanding. Troop count is often way more important than income, especially in a Diplomacy or FFA game.

I keep thinking about maybe making a stream for RT Diplos (maybe to replace WGL for a mix-up), as I think this could be really interesting to show a lot of the thinking behind a Diplo game that a "normal" player perhaps doesn't see or get. It would be a lot of work though, but if anyone is interested in helping with it then I would love you to PM me :)