If it's Points Per Supply Center they aren't really doing much wrong.
Is you don't like it when people do that, join more winner takes all games, and youll still get people who just cant give up on a grudge, but most will fight as hard as they can to stop a solo.

Yea, it's just a matter of personal game objectives. People may opt to go for a strong 2nd when they see minimal chance of cooperating with others to stop the leader.

Welcome to the "why the heck would you ever willingly let someone solo" camp drwiggles. I understand your frustration. Personally I don't believe in a "strong second" and think its against the spirit and intention of the game, but I understand that people hang their hat on the ppsc notion. If you're looking for someone who plays WTA style even in ppsc, hit me up for a game.

Sure. There's both a subjective and an objective part in the secondary goals you may have in a game, depending on the pot rule.

In WTA the only possible secondary objective goal is to draw, so the subjective ones are very rare (IE, someone pissed me off so much that my secondary goal is to make sure he'll lose, no matter what) and usually irrational.
In PPSC it's more complicated because there can be several secondary objective goals. Not only the ethernal dilemma "draw vs. good survive" for big powers, but even small powers have a goal because surviving is different than being defeated. This brings the secondary subjective goals to be more numerous as well. And this makes the PPSC game more complicated and impredictable. You can hear poor inelastic players, unable to play this variant, saying that it's not true diplomacy, that it's against the real "spirit" of Avalon Hill (that is true, but it doesn't make PPSC less funny or less challenging), expecially from players who are 80, who played for 60 years board game FtF at home and who discovered internet just yesterday.
Also, there's a third class we could call "Tournaments". In tournaments, the main goal is (rather obviousely) to win the tournament. To win the tournament, trying to win all the games you play, although working, could not be the best strategy depending on the tournaments' rules & scoring. This could reflect on a single Tournament's game even changing the main goal, because (IE due to previous results) a survive in the last game of the Round could be enough to qualify for next Round, avoiding elimination. So everyone in such a game should keep it into their counts. Everyone should realize that there could be as many different main goals as the players in the game are. If they don't, they'll play that Tour's game as if it was a PPSC or a WTA, they'll lose, and at one point you'll hear them complaining someone else betrayed the spirit of Stacippa Dicazzo.........
Just losers.

So. Any the pot rule (or Tournament scoring system) be, be sure you fully got it. That said, don't forget that you'll often meet someone who didn't fully get it or also someone who got it but he thinks he has a more important secondary subjective goal to achieve (IE, killing someone who just stabbed him).

I believe this is the most beauty of diplomacy: not always the other players play their cards the same way you'd play them. What a sad and predictable game it would be.

Hi drano! I haven't had to wait too much to read the "spirit" word, apparently. :D :D :D
Just joking. :)

I'm always up for WTA:

I try to keep the mantra for WTA: solo if at all possible, otherwise narrow the draw as far as is safe, and stop any other solo at all costs (regardless of previous relations or alliances).

Strong seconds, group hug draws, and non-temporal alliances are getting old.
It shouldn't be so taboo to break alliances, that rampant group hug draws abound, or that players won't break ranks to stop a player from soloing, just because they'll get a good share of the pie as second.

PPSC which is so widely prevalent among games played is a different animal, and I myself am still trying to make sense of the WTA mantra in light of PPSC.

Welcome to the club drwiggles.

Ah so now we are "poor" and "inelastic" Guaroz? Your passive-aggressiveness is always a pleasure :p

I would like to point out that Guaroz actually confirmed what I said. By calling PPSC a variant (check his post), he's actually agreeing that its not how the "real" game is played. Checkmate :p

That aside, my real issue is that PPSC is the default setting on here, and its how a lot of Dip noons are learning the game. They're learning that letting someone else win, as long as you have 15scs, is OK. And then those people have a hard time adjusting to WTA or other styles more geared towards winning or at least preventing someone else from winning.

I would argue that its easier to switch from WTA mentality to PPSC than the other way around. Because once you've become accustomed to the more laid back end game mentality of PPSC, its hard to ever take it up that last notch.

Also, a huge +1 for Leif. I'm sick of hearing that no matter what I do, nothing can change their strategy. Rigid and unchanging alliance that lead to a premeditated draw are hardly the world Allan Calhamer intended.

Amen, brother.

Amen, drano019. The reality of the situation is that the PPSC setting is trash. It appear to be a well intentioned (and you know what they say about good intentions) way of introducing a less competitive brand of Diplomacy to newcomers. This is a flawed concept in the first place because Diplomacy is not a 'nice' game. It's a war game, and it's very essence is based on survival of the fittest. The *objective* of the game is to *dominate* the map board through diplomatic and tactical maneuvering. There is no such thing as a strong second place.

I despise the very existence of such a game setting, but if you want to create a game style for pussies, fine. This site has plenty of variants, and why not have a variant where points are assigned by SC so that losers can still score big points for losing. It's like the every kid gets a trophy mentality. And the WORST part of this is that the PPSC setting is the default setting. Kudos to drano for observing that Guaroz himself has identified the PPSC a variant by definition. This begs the question of why is it that the wussified settings are always on the default?

Leif and drano, Guaroz will argue for garbage until he's blue in the face. He's help create this welfare system of trash, and nothing will every convince him that rewarding losing, encouraging mediocrity, and emphasizing bad play is a good idea. The only option for playing a good game of Diplomacy appears to be selecting the WTA *option* which is represented here as some barbarically mean spirited way to play. The reality is that WTA is the *only* way to play, and if you participate in a PPSC game you're going to have to endure morons because this community is actively cultivating morons by design whether they want to admit it or not. Guaroz will never accept criticism, no matter how constructive of his golden calf. He's perfect, and we're all stupid for wanting to see the game played correctly.

Drano, happy you felt pleasure by my post. If you got the whole sense of it, you found that I don't blame who prefers a variant over the others. Tastes are tastes and you have the right of playing the one you like the most.
What I blame is people who lost because they didn't have clear what game they were playing and, instead of blaming themselves, they blame someone else who did not play by some sort of "spirit".

WTA may be more similar to Board FtF game than PPSC, but it's not exactly the same so it's a variant itself. Welcome to internet.
That said, I don't see why someone who doesn't know Diplomacy at all, lands on the home page of a site like this, reads the rules @ http://www.vdiplomacy.com/intro.php, and then looks for his first game to join, I don't see why he should consider one variant more "true" than the other.
After a few games played, if I was him I'd try to make sure I had fully got the differences between the two pot rules in order to be able to properly play each one. Maybe only after months I'd wonder if there's one I like the most, if there's one more funny than the other. And if someone felt to explain me what would be "true" Diplomacy, if interested I could buy the Game Box.
From my point of view PPSC and WTA are 2 variants equally good.
Does who played the box game think WTA is more "true"? Good for him, I don't care what the "true" game is and I don't intend to buy the box to discover it.
To me, "true" games are what I can play here. Tournament, WTA and PPSC are all true.

"That aside, my real issue is that PPSC is the default setting on here ... I would argue that its easier to switch from WTA mentality to PPSC than the other way around."

Agreed. WTA is much more simple (for the reason of secondary goals I told before)[Note: "more simple" doesn't imply "more easy" to win]. Beginners should probably start with it, but I guess it would bring a couple of issues:
a) Psicological. A beginner would probably start with a long row of "defeated". Not encouraging. Nobody excites and become fond to a game he always lose (and gets 0 ).
b) Points. With some survive good enough, a noob could improve his points. This is exciting! Encouraging! (Infact noobs often care about points, HoFs and stuff like that)
So basically I believe it's a matter of propaganda in order to encourage new players to stay, don't give up and become mature players.

Ok. Thanks for reading this. Now I expect that some of those will show up.

Not some of those who just prefer WTA, I understand their arguments on why they find one variant more funny than the others and why this variant has to be WTA, for them.
I'm saying some of those who "My God told me that WTA is the ONLY real Diplomacy and He promised that if I'll fight the unfaithful PPSCer I'll get to heaven. There will be 78 virgins, 2 arguable girls and one undisputed big slut waiting for me, there!"

I like WTA after all. I'd like it more than now if there weren't so many bigot religious-fanatics with their pointless arguments.

I recently lost a Viking Diplomacy game in which I assumed that the number of SC's required for a win would be half + 1. In reality, the other got a win with less than a third, while two other players were 2 SC's behind.

Well guaroz, looks like we'll have to disagree again! While I applaud your acceptance of my opinion that people should learn the game on WTA style, your claim that WTA is simpler than ppsc is laughable at best. Let us explore.

In WTA, you have to navigate a political mind field. Everyone is nervous about the solo. Everyone wants to survive. Every move is analyzed as a potential stab and everyone is far more cautious. Being able to successfully navigate those diplomatic interactions and actually work your way into a position where you have a chance to solo, without causing the board to unite against you, is a heroic feat that is far more difficult to do than anything in ppsc.

In ppsc, oftentimes you get players who ally on turn 1, and never look back. Nothing you say or do can change that. This usually leads to alliances that end up drawing. Hardly a difficult task.

Now the reason I say people should learn on WTA is this: once you've learned how to play WTA, you will usually succeed in ppsc. This is not true the other way around. Playing with a WTA mentality in ppsc will usually yield a draw at worst for a decent player. However, playing with a ppsc mentality in WTA will cause defeat most of the time. So would it not be better for new players to learn to play with WTA and so therefore be successful in whichever style they choose to play?

The use of points is a variation of the original game <fullstop>

I learned the game first at home with my brother, father and cousins. And then later with friends and a fair amount of drink.

Not once did we ever consider a point/ranking system.

@Drano
[Note: "more simple" doesn't imply "more easy" to win]
Actually, WTA is more hard to win. Which justify why winning a WTA Classic (say 10 buy-in) earns you 70 while winning a PPSC Classic earns you only 37 .
I didn't play many WTAs but I know the "fear of solo" you're talking about. Infact all those games ended in a draw.

I said simpler meaning about the goals you can find in other players' minds at some point of the game.
In WTA, big powers will be considering how to win and little ones how to stop any solos and achieve a draw.
In PPSC it's much more complex.
_____

@ kaner, +1

Guaroz -

You do realize by giving kaner a +1, you're supporting WTA right? Without a point system , the only objective becomes winning or failing that, stopping someone else from winning, which is essentially wta.

@Gunmaster, yeah, that's Viking Diplomacy. You have to be ready for it.

For the purposes of playing future vDip games, I think it's great "survivors" get points in PPSC, but I don't think anyone should ever value a strong second, a.k.a., a survive, a.k.a., a loss, over letting someone else solo or over a draw (as I have seen here!). Hence, you can put me in the play every game WTA style camp -- vDip point awards should not affect the true intent of the game!

+1 G-Man, for your first sentence.

Solo>Draw>Survive>Defeat is the most sensible way of ranking outcomes. Neither PPSC or WTA work this, which is the flaw in both systems.

I would disagree with you captain. Survive is not > defeat. Survive IS a defeat, just by a different name. In a survive, someone soloed. That is a loss just as much as a defeat.

If we argue that a survive is > defeat, than we are encouraging small powers to help people solo instead of taking the chance for the draw which might end up on elimination

So which is cash and which is the tourney texas hold'em? :P

Drano, Ruff, Leif and others WTA-addicted vs Guaroz, this is the proper field for your crusade:
http://vdiplomacy.com/forum.php?threadID=43542#43542

This thread has gone off-topic very early.
I suppose that drwiggles, "aka urallLESBIANS" lol, didn’t want to read a debate about the betrayal of the spirit of Stacippa Dicazzo.
drwiggles was concerned about the poor awareness of (uncommon) Victory Conditions.

Thanks Mertvaya Ruka for *trying* to bring this back to the original track.

The problem I have with the mentality that survive = defeat is that it encourages the modest that says "if I don't get my way with player A, I'll throw the solo to B, and I'll use the threat of that as a diplomatic tool". I just can't have someone throw that kind of childish threat at me and respect their style of play. If I decide early on to attack one country while allying with another (which is essentially the starting point of every game) and the country I decide to attack, rather than trying to turn my ally against me or recruit others to his cause, plays the "I'll take my ball and go home" card, thinking that I'd rather do what he says than get a survive at the expense of someone else's solo, then my new goal becomes defeating the childish bastard. A win, draw, survive or defeat only lasts the duration of the game, but integrity and honor last a lifetime.

In a tournament game where my actions affect not only me for that game, but others playing in many other games, I'll generally modify my response, because I don't want my Opinions about honor and integrity negatively affecting other players, but got that's a tough pill to swallow when I do.

Stupid autocorrect.

modest = mindset
but got that's a tough pill ... = but God that's a tough pill ...

I almost forgot I started this thread. I really just wanted to blow off steam. I have more extensive experience on webdip, so I'm not knew to this kind of experience.

@yaaks
I never said it was PPSC or WTA. Having said that I almost always play WTA.

I think its interesting that most of you seemed to think that I am playing a PPSC game, or you just took the tangent and ran with it.

I actually understand and agree with the reasoning for PPSC, even if I avoid them when I can. PPSC is just for people who don't want as much of a challenge or they want different reactions from the players. I only play them on here if I'm desperately bored and want to try a new variant.