ok, here's the sidestory:

I'm currently playing in a big game (20 teams x 2 players) on a big map (Switzerland big). My teammate got booted early, but i got along pretty well and was quickly having one of the biggest income of all players. (I can't tell for sure because fog, but anyways...)

So now, the situation is as follows (we are currently at turn 40 or something): I have a pretty big bonus at one side of the map. I have two visible opponents, one of them is a team i allied up with, and the other one is currently most probably the biggest player / team. I also share the biggest part of my boarder with him. He has put me on diplo since turn 20, and in the meantime i am basically "cut off" from the "outside world", because i now share around 80% of my boarders with him.

At the beginning i thought "ah well, ok, he diplo'd me, that will stop", and i just gathered troops at our boarder. I think in the meantime i got something like 3000 troops all along that boarder (income roughly 200), and he has 1 in every territory facing me. After a while, i began to realise that there are just too many diplo cards in this game, so this player can basically hold me back permanently. (because he has still his teammate, so he has double the card-income). I guess, that i had double his income as this started. In the meantime, he may have double MY income, because he was able to spread, and i wasn't. I was on diplo for roughly 20 turns now.

Now, this just really annoys me, because i know i could have won this game if there were no diplo cards.
I am not mad at this player for doing this, i probably would do the same in his situation. I'm mad becasue this is even possible.
Yes, i know, i could have known this since the settings were clear and stuff, but it's hard to figure out with those fraction numbers etc, you have to do a lot of math to figure out how many cards there will be in the end. I also know that i could have just attacked the other team i share a boarder with, but i just didn't want that. I'm absolutely not against diplo cards, they are ok. And, to be honest, at the beginning of the game i did not pay close attention to the card distribution, and i did not realize that this would be enough to perma-diplo someone. Even the creator of the game didn't. So, i basically lost this game now, because there were too many diplo cards.

As i said, i am absolutely not against diplo-cards. they can be great if they are used wisely. I just think that they are meant to be used for temporary advantages, or to hold someone back for a few turns, and not for the whole game. It cannot be the intention behind this card.
So, i personally think that the diplo-card should be nerfed a bit, to prevent this in the future. Let's say you can't play more than 5 (or 10) cards against the same player in a row or something. Or at least a warning in the game settings saying like "with these settings, it will be possible for a player/team to perma-diplo someone".

But i'll leave it up to debate, there are sure other views. Thanks for the attention.

Edited 6/4/2015 13:49:59

It sounds to me like the creator of the game screwed it up by giving out too many Diplomacy cards.

I think they can add some spice to a game, but I only like them when they're only good for one turn and very rare.

> So, i personally think that the diplo-card should be nerfed a bit, to prevent this in the
> future. Let's say you can't play more than 5 (or 10) cards against the same player in a
> row or something.

Would you still feel this way if the roles had been reversed? You freely admit "i probably would do the same in his situation" after all.


> Or at least a warning in the game settings saying like "with these settings, it will be
> possible for a player/team to perma-diplo someone".

There's countless ways to create game-breaking card settings.

Have a Reinforcements Card in 20 pieces (weight 1) for a million armies and have at least one other card type (cumulative weight of all the other cards greater than 10). You've now essentially created a lottery.

The Reinforcements Card also has other options, besides awarding a fixed number of armies, both of which can massively skew a game if you're not very careful.

Give your Sanctions Card a highly negative factor and give out multiple per turn. Even apart from players not paying attention and using them on the other team, this will likely ruin the game.

Do you expect WL to warn against all of these combinations? What about a situation where there's just too few Diplomacy Cards to keep somebody permanently under diplomacy (get 9 pieces a turn when it's been split into 10 pieces, or get a boatload of pieces initially)? Should that also trigger a warning? Where do you draw the line? Besides, if your teammate hadn't gotten himself booted, the other team would have to keep both of you under permanent Diplomacy, what if enough card pieces get awarded to keep one player under permanent Diplomacy, but not an entire team; show the warning or not? Besides, if he uses all his Diplomacy cards on you, he can't use them on other player; give a shout in chat and talk other players into attacking him!

TL;DR:
You can read the card settings ahead of time. If you don't do so, or fail to spot a problem, it's a lesson learned and something you'll know to keep an eye out for next time.

I think that there shouldn't be any limits to how you should create a game and that people should read the settings before they join.

Would you still feel this way if the roles had been reversed? You freely admit "i probably would do the same in his situation" after all.

To be honest, assuming that the roles were reversed, i would probably not make a forum post about it, BUT, assuming that the other guy would make a forum post similar to mine, i would be willing to admit that i don't believe that diplo cards are meant to be used that way, and that this is indeed kind of an "abuse" that gives me an advantage i may not deserve.


And, please be honest here, if you join a game, do you seriously check every time exactly how many cards you (or your team) will get per turn, and what this may or may not imply for your game? I doubt that. I don't. I just have a brief look to see which cards are avaliable, and maybe check if any of these numbers seem extremely out of the ordinary, and that's it. I really don't care how many reinforcement cards or airlifts i get per turn exactly, as long as i know that the others get the same amount, and the amounts are in the range of what can be consideret normal.

As I already mentioned, even the creator of the game admitted that he did not intend this to happen and that he just took "any number" which he was guessing could be appropriate.

I completely agree that i COULD have spotted that problem beforehand, and i most probably WILL do so for future games. Nevertheless, i still consider this as kind of a "bug", or at least "un-intended feature", which should be taken care of
But that's just my opinion, and i am aware that i'm probably part of a minority.

Diplo cards aren't strategic, and most people check the settings before joining. If anything looks out of place, I decline. Simple as that.

[...]in 7 pieces to last for 2 turns (min. 1 piece per turn)
[3 other card types with 1 min. per turn]
number of pieces per turn: 7

well, i did check the settings. but, these numbers did not seem too much "out of place" for me, so it was not at all obvious for me that this scenario could happen. of course, now i know better.

> And, please be honest here, if you join a game, do you seriously check every time
> exactly how many cards you (or your team) will get per turn, and what this may or
> may not imply for your game?

Yes, I actually do check settings before each and every single game. Well, except rematches (but then I checked the settings for the original game) and except individual tournament games (but I'm extra picky about checking settings before joining the tournament itself). Having WL automatically highlight the settings I find most important makes that very doable actually.
Admittedly, I pay far more attention to things like whether it honours vacation mode, boot times and whether multi-attack is on, but I do look at the card settings as well. Occasionally I do miss things (such as recently overlooking a game being so generous with Spy, Surveillance and Reconnaissance cards we might as well have played without fog). When that happens, I don't consider it a bug with WL, I consider it sloppy on my part.


> I completely agree that i COULD have spotted that problem beforehand, and i most
> probably WILL do so for future games.

So, problem solved then...


> Nevertheless, i still consider this as kind of a "bug", or at least "un-intended feature",
> which should be taken care of

You forgot to address my concerns about how to "take care" of it. There's so many corner cases, so many exceptions, such a huge grey area... how do you propose to solve that?
For comparison, when you use a custom distribution, you always get a warning about it possibly being unfair, because there's just no way to automatically determine whether it is. But I don't think a generic "This game uses cards, make sure to check the exact settings before joining" on every game with cards would make much sense.

[...]in 7 pieces to last for 2 turns (min. 1 piece per turn)
[3 other card types with 1 min. per turn]
number of pieces per turn: 7

Maybe WL could automatically show the "average pieces per turn" for each card type? Assuming all four card types have equal weight, each team is getting (on average):
- 2 players * 1 piece / player = 2 pieces from "min pieces per turn"
- 2 players * (7-4) random pieces / player * 1/4 drop rate = 1.5 pieces from random drops
- In total: 3.5 pieces per turn.

Do you consider the following example text an acceptable proposal?

[...]in 7 pieces to last for 2 turns (min. 1 piece per turn)
[3 other card types with 1 min. per turn]
number of pieces per turn: 7

Average number of pieces per turn per team:
Diplomacy: 3.5 pieces
Reinforcements: x pieces
Airlift: y pieces
Spy: z pieces

Given that it is already possible to make a game with Diplomacy cards lasting 200 turns I don't see why this new function makes any sense.

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=8849730

As others have said, always check the settings. If you can't make sense of them well enough to avoid the game then that is on you.

Warlight gives game creators tremendous freedom in creating all kinds of different games.

The downside is that it's possible to create all kinds of non-viable games. (For instance, see the games with a base production of 0/turn, which people often join and then can't play if they don't pick the right starting position.)

This is why we have the "vote to end" function.

I'd rather have the freedom to screw up than impose restrictions on top of all this, one at a time, until we eliminate something like this (which, you never know, some other player might find desirable for some reason, like re-creating some kind of special diplomatic conditions in a simulation of some weird fantasy world, placing a player on a map who can't be attacked so they can teach them tactics, or whatever other reasons they dream up).

I like the suggestion of including a calculation which shows how many card pieces are awarded, on average, per turn (it's not an easy calculation to make yourself), but it's hardly a very high priority for Warlight's team.

> I'd rather have the freedom to screw up than impose restrictions

Just for the record, OP originally said:

> So, i personally think that the diplo-card should be nerfed a bit, to prevent this
> in the future. Let's say you can't play more than 5 (or 10) cards against the same
> player in a row or something. Or at least a warning in the game settings saying
> like "with these settings, it will be possible for a player/team to perma-diplo
> someone".

While the first idea is kind of like a restriction (though, devil's advocate, if it were configurable you could just put it at a million in a row and effectively remove the restriction), the second suggestion is explicitly only a warning, not a restriction; if you want to ignore it, sure, go ahead!

I agree diplo cards should not be able to keep someone in diplo indefinitely

And, please be honest here, if you join a game, do you seriously check every time exactly how many cards you (or your team) will get per turn, and what this may or may not imply for your game?

Yes, yes I do.

And, please be honest here, if you join a game, do you seriously check every time exactly how many cards you (or your team) will get per turn, and what this may or may not imply for your game?

I'm with Monsi here- I don't look into the details of the cards settings. I just glance at them and make sure nothing looks out of the ordinary.

Any feedback, opinions, improvements for the proposal I made in my https://www.warlight.net/Forum/93805-discussion-permadiplo?Offset=8 post?

I like it.

sorry to reply a bit late here, and thanks for all your replies.

I Like RvW's suggestion. I guess that would help. Maybe even with "average number of XY-cards per team /round" instead of the pieces.


Btw, in the meantime i "ragequit" the game, because my opponent gathered troops at one point of our boarder, let the diplo wear off for 1 turn, only to break my big bonus (which i could not defend cause my troops were spread all over the boarder) & put me back on diplo. Smart move, as i must admit.

I put it on WL's official feature-request forum: http://warlight.uservoice.com/forums/77051-warlight-features/suggestions/8301369-summary-of-card-pieces-in-settings-menu

The more votes it gets, the sooner it might be considered by Fizzer / the more likely it will be implemented. :p

Monsi, having read your post and a couple of the replies *not all, mind*
First I'd like to point out.. many games have multi-turn D cards.. so preventing it from being used on you enough turns in a row will do nothing, as it is not actually in a row...
I can understand your point, and can see why in a huge game you could want enough D cards to defend multiple fronts.. enough to do what you're talking about.
However, I feel that *forcing* any restriction on the game creators is wrong... that being said, there could be an *option* to add a delay to card usage..
I'm thinking this could apply to any card that affects target players, quite simply.. sanction, diplomacy, airlift.. so that if the *game creator* decided, they could prevent this kind of situation from occurring.

And the problem with the warning, is as RvW said, there are many ways that can be used to create game-breaking cards, sometimes unknowingly.. should every possible combination come with a warning..?

and I agree with RvW's card suggestion.. However, I wonder how it would work with skewed team games..? *I know those are highly uncommon but...*

Edited 6/10/2015 04:29:51