Forum
A place to discuss topics/games with other webDiplomacy players.
Page 130 of 160
FirstPreviousNextLast
The Real Wheat (969 D)
29 Mar 18 UTC
(+1)
Issue with South American Supremacy Map
Hey, I'm getting ready to start a game with some friends using the South American Supremacy map. It appears the map is starting with a fleet in Bogata, which is a landlocked territory. the variant homepage lists Bogata as starting with an army. Is there is a good way to correct this? Thanks!
2 replies
Open
The Ambassador (1948 D (B))
22 Mar 18 UTC
(+1)
Forum search idea
Cam the awesome guys that know techie stuff add some functionality to the forum so you can search?
6 replies
Open
jason4747 (1633 D)
21 Mar 18 UTC
What happened to the U.S. of Insanity?
Draw?
2 replies
Open
Woodruff (1000 D)
22 Mar 18 UTC
Map Markings
I apologize if this is a repeat question or if it's found somewhere obvious, but I'm brand new to vDiplomacy and I can't seem to find what the difference is between the two types of what I believe are SC markings on the Bye Bye Federalism map.

Can someone help me?
2 replies
Open
March Madness discussion
Let's have a discussion/argument about this year's tournament.
12 replies
Open
Pretz (952 D)
20 Mar 18 UTC
Option to play a variant with fewer than the max number of players?
Hello all,

I and two of my friends love playing 3 player diplo games together. Having gone through the different 3 player maps, I'm wondering if there is a way to play on some of the larger variants, but with just 3 people? For instance, I'd love it if we could play a 3 player game on Fall of the American Empire IV.
2 replies
Open
Enriador (1507 D)
15 Mar 18 UTC
Which variant would you like seeing on vDiplomacy?
Is there a variant that you really want to play, but isn't available here yet?

I have done work on half a dozen variants and I would like to pick something else. What's your favorite?
30 replies
Open
G-Man (2466 D)
17 Mar 18 UTC
Policy For Site Unavailability/Glitch
What do you mods think about having some kind of policy posted to address when the site goes down or is not functional in the future? You have chosen to cancel the 1st game of Divided States over this, but the last time I was involved in a game that had this happen, the last phase was replayed. So currently, the response isn't consistent.
0 replies
Open
WWII Tournament REPLACEMENT NEEDED
^^^

Go to the WWII Tournament thread for details. First come, first served.
0 replies
Open
JECE (1534 D)
04 Mar 18 UTC
Join Team Iberia in the 2018 webDiplomacy World Cup
Iberia came 3rd in 2010, 2nd in 2012 and was absent from the 2016 edition. We're late to the party, but hopefully we can pull together quickly enough to register our team before sign-ups close. Are you ready?
The tournament is getting organized now:
http://webdiplomacy.net/contrib/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=298
4 replies
Open
Enriador (1507 D)
03 Mar 18 UTC
[Poll] Balkan Gambit
If you are playing Austria and doing a Balkan Gambit, what orders do you give to Army Vienna?

https://strawpoll.com/redwyz6b
1 reply
Open
Grahamso1 (1912 D)
01 Mar 18 UTC
“Resigning” from a game
I would never want to do this but what does it mean when I see a player “resigned” from a game
3 replies
Open
tobi1 (1997 D Mod (S))
03 Feb 18 UTC
(+2)
Improvement suggestions?
I am looking to give some love to my main coding contributions to vdip, namely the interactive map and the TSR in Colonial Diplomacy. Do you have any wishes, improvement suggestions, issues or bug reports with these implementations?
11 replies
Open
Enriador (1507 D)
25 Feb 18 UTC
[Classic] Tuscan Opening
Hello guys! I wrote an article on webDiplomacy.net Forum about a "Tuscan Opening" that I will transcribe here for those who aren't members of webDip. I hope you enjoy it!
1 reply
Open
Oli (977 D Mod (P))
13 Feb 18 UTC
(+3)
New mega-variant: Divided states....
Here comes our largest variant ever: Divided States.
A variant for 50 players!! With 693 territories (270 land, 236 coast, and 187 sea territories).
44 replies
Open
Anon (?? D)
15 Feb 18 UTC
Western World 901 Bug?
I am in a gunboat and when I try to see the past orders it tells me there is a bug.

http://vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=33658
3 replies
Open
Argentinean Empire (1606 D)
23 Jan 18 UTC
(+2)
Prove your historical knowledge!
Since some discrepancies arose from the Winning thread, (what else is new?) here we go. We start with a question, and the person that correctly answers it posts a question of their own, and it continues.
158 replies
Open
michael_b (952 D)
12 Aug 17 UTC
Question: Adding Variant(s)
Please see reply.
57 replies
Open
Halt (2077 D)
10 Feb 18 UTC
Can't send press during build phase?
Hi, during one of my games, I seem to not be able to send press during build phase? I have been away from the site for a few years, so is this a new feature/rule I'm unaware of or is there something wrong with the game I'm in?

gameID=33649
2 replies
Open
nopunin10did (1041 D)
22 Jan 18 UTC
Email notifications?
Does vDiplomacy not have an option to send email notifications upon important game events?

I just recently set up a game, then came back to check on it a couple days later only to find that I'd NMR'd it without even knowing. I couldn't find anything in my email, even in Spam or Trash.
15 replies
Open
Enriador (1507 D)
07 Feb 18 UTC
WTA vs Draw-Disvaluated Scoring
What about adding Draw-Disvaluated Scoring to vDip?

It's a mix of Calhamer Scoring (aka Winner-Takes-All) with Draw-Zero Scoring, and has the fortunate effect of pushing players towards a solo unless a draw is absolutely necessary. Solos work like in WTA, but draws are different.
Enriador (1507 D)
07 Feb 18 UTC
It works like this: presume a game is worth 100 points and ends in a 2-way draw:

*Calhamer Scoring (WTA) gives 50 points to each surviving player (100 / 2 = 50 points)

*Draw-Zero Scoring gives them nothing (100 / 0 = 0 points)

*Draw-Disvaluated Scoring divides the pot (100 points) in two: the first half is awarded like Calhamer Scoring (50 / 2 = 25 points) while the second half is awarded like Draw-Zero Scoring (50 / 0 = 0 points).

In other words, a 2-way draw can at most have 25% of the total pot, with 50% of it being reserved for the solo victor.

What do you think?
ScubaSteve (1234 D)
07 Feb 18 UTC
I like it. A little draconian, perhaps, but if it encourages treachery, I'm in favor.
nopunin10did (1041 D)
08 Feb 18 UTC
I’m curious what style of play you’re trying to encourage.

Also, if the game is still zero-sum, then the final point values are the same.
Chumbles (1380 D)
08 Feb 18 UTC
It stinks - it's not zero sum as it halves the original stake; I will aalways NEVER play a game that is rated that way. Also "In other words, a 2-way draw can at most have 25% of the total pot, with 50% of it being reserved for the solo victor." is nonsense - if it's a 2-ay draw their is a NO sole victor. Been at the giggle juice, Scooby?
Chumbles (1380 D)
08 Feb 18 UTC
Damn, sorry for typos - 5 a.m. and no autocrrect!
tantrumizer (1557 D)
08 Feb 18 UTC
Yeah, I don't like the zero-sum aspect either, but it would be cool for a tournament where the "extra" points go to solos. Hard to implement in vDip though...
Enriador (1507 D)
08 Feb 18 UTC
@nopunin10did, Draw-Disvaluated intends to encourage solos without the harshness of Draw-Zero.

@chumbles

The game is indeed not zero-sum, but who claimed it was?

The point of DDS is that a 2-way draw is *not* worth half a solo. A solo is the ultimate objective and should be way more rewarded - which is solved by reserving 50% of the pot apart.

So, it's also not a constant-sum scoring.

I must add that this system was invented by Thaddeus Black, intercontinental Diplomacy champion who posted it first in Diplomacy World #133.
nopunin10did (1041 D)
08 Feb 18 UTC
To be clear, I wasn’t comparing it to Draw-Zero. I was trying to state that, in order for the system you describe to act in a zero-sum manner, the mathematics of it yields a result no different than standard WTA or DSS.

And if you left the system described intact without converting it to zero-sum, you would be left with a negative-sum system. Half the pot bet at the start of the match would simply disappear. Such a system rewards players for playing fewer games in the long term.
nopunin10did (1041 D)
08 Feb 18 UTC
As for its use in tournaments, those games don’t have to be zero sum because there’s no “bet” at the beginning, as there has to be in an unstructured environment such as this.
nopunin10did (1041 D)
09 Feb 18 UTC
Alternatively, what one _could_ do to achieve something similar to this scoring system would be this:

If the game ends in a draw, take half the pot and refund it, splitting it evenly between all players (including those who were eliminated or opted out of the draw).

Split the other half of the pot evenly between all draw participants.
Mercy (2131 D)
09 Feb 18 UTC
I think this is a bad scoring system.

First of all, all games on this site are zero-sum, and I think that they should be. I have a different look at solos. I see a solo more as a failure of the survivors than as an achievement of the winner, and it is a fact that the worse the players are on average, the more likely it is that someone will solo. Giving a higher total payoff for games in which someone solos does not make much sense to me.

The suggestion of nopunin10did in the post above me makes more sense to me since its zero-sum, but it still would be very weird to have. It would incentive players to stop a solo EVEN if they KNEW that would cause their elimination. This is just as strange as PPSC scoring, where players are incentiviced to take more supply centers, even if they know that will cause someone else to solo. Also, a side-effect of giving all players, even losing ones, an extra reason to help prevent a solo from occurring, might decrease, instead of increase, the number of solos that you would see.

If you really want to encourage solo attempts, then one should have a scoring system that, in case of a draw, gives a higher payoff to players that are closer to achieving a solo than to other players.
Consider two scenario's where some player (let's call him Bob) plays a classic game.
- Scenario A: Bob plays for the draw from the beginning onward. He allies with 3 other nations and eliminated the other 3 nations with his allies. After that, all players are roughly equal in size, and everyone draws.
- Scenario B: Bob attempts a solo. He comes very close; in fact, he reaches 17 supply centers. But he gets stalemated by the 4 surviving players on the other side of the stalemate line (none of which is very big in size) and has to accept a draw.
Under the scoring system we currently use at vDiplomacy, Bob would gain more points in scenario A than in scenario B. A better scoring system would give Bob a higher payoff in scenario B, as that scoring system would encourage solo attempts. There does exist precisely such a scoring system, and it's called Sum-Of-Squares Scoring. I am not in particular favoring that scoring system, as it has its own problems, but I think this is the right way to think about scoring systems and how to improve them.
d-ice (1969 D)
09 Feb 18 UTC
@Mercy: Also C-diplo rewards getting closer to a solo, but it also adds an interesting conflict for the defenders as there's a bonus also for second or third most SCs. I too don't want to go as far as to say that there is one-fits-all scoring system, but this one does add an extra twist to the stalemating game that a skillful player might exploit to steal a solo. Therefore I would argue that C-diplo promotes solo attempts just as much as SoS, if not more!
kaner406 (2181 D Mod (B))
09 Feb 18 UTC
I've recently been playing on the Conspiracy! platform, a Diplomacy app that's available on Android devices. One of the things I like about it is that it factors in an ELO rating system, but that there is only ever three outcomes to a game Win-Draw-Defeat. No survive, no points for second place, no points for assisting another player to win, or failing to change course and join forces with previous enemies against a solo attempt.

If anything the whole WTA,PPSC,SoS etc argument is just adding complexity when there really doesn't need to be one. We should be able to simplify the whole ELO rating element here. The exceptions being variants that are deliberately unbalanced like Fubar or Renascimento which should be exempt from the ELO system of scoring
Mercy (2131 D)
09 Feb 18 UTC
@d-ice: Sure, C-diplo would be a reasonable scoring system as well.

@kaner406: I have also played on the Conspiracy app (name: Genade) and I have to inform you that you are misunderstanding the Conspiracy scoring system. Conspiracy uses PPSC as a measure of your performance in a game. In fact, if you win with more than 18 supply centers, your performance is rated better than if you win with precisely 18 supply centers. Your PPSC scoring, together with your ELO ranking relative to the other players, determines how your ELO ranking will change. This can go very far: If your ELO ranking is far higher than your opponents, and you win with not much more than 18 supply centers, you can loose ELO ranking.
Also, I do not understand what you mean with your talk about the 'WTA, PPSC, SoS etc argument just adding complexity' and that we 'should be able to simplify the whole ELO rating element'. By definition, any ELO ranking operates in accordance to SOME scoring system.
kaner406 (2181 D Mod (B))
09 Feb 18 UTC
Well I'm wrong regarding how the ELO system works then, but all the same, why not get rid of the points needed to join a game entirely, and restrict the amount of games a player can join based on their reliability? By removing the need to use points to buy into a game you are making a more pure version of the ELO system, that operates in the background and not as a dual use ppsc/WTA creation that grew out of a semi flawed inheritance from webDip. Getting rid of these dual (actually 3 types of game creation of you count unranked games) points generating system and basing something on a win-draw-loss scenario seems like a step in the right direction to me.
Enriador (1507 D)
09 Feb 18 UTC
@kaner406 raises a good point. Points are supposed to determine both 1) the best players and 2) the "level" of a game. However, vDiplomacy points already are more well-regarded to decide the best players, and reliability can work just as well to decide who can enter a game.

Still, there's always Unranked. Some people do like the thrill of points!
nopunin10did (1041 D)
09 Feb 18 UTC
@d-ice & @Mercy

There's parallel conversations about rank-based systems going on now in both this thread and another:

http://www.vdiplomacy.com/forum.php?threadID=76569

I have a description in that thread of how one might adapt a Carnage-based system to vDip. Carnage is a rank-based system that works on the principles of C-Diplo and has become very popular in US-based face-to-face tournaments.

I'm having trouble finding the full official Carnage writeup, but it's an iteration on Dave Maletsky's "Win Tier" system that replaces the "tier" concept with a simple solo-winner-takes-all-points mechanism.

http://www.world-diplomacy-database.com/php/scoring/scoring_class.php?id_scoring=14
d-ice (1969 D)
09 Feb 18 UTC
Ok @nopun, but really the “solo-winner-takes-all-points mechanism” is default in almost all scoring systems I know of... the interesting part is how the system handles forced and agreed draws.
nopunin10did (1041 D)
09 Feb 18 UTC
@d-ice

Agreed. The only quirk about rank-based systems is that if a solo winner still takes _all_ of the points, it means that an eliminated player's score isn't known at the time of elimination. Whether they get any points at all depends on whether the remaining players end in a draw or solo; this is the same problem with the hypothetical zero-sum variation of draw-disvaluated-scoring.

I've been working on the mathematics for a zero-sum rank-based / draw-size hybrid that would combine some of the merits of each. For a standard 7-player game, it would award 85% of the pot to a solo, rather than 100%, to make room for some menial consolation prizes that would be awarded based on the degree of loss (and would still represent a net-negative point change).
nopunin10did (1041 D)
09 Feb 18 UTC
Correction: ~79% of the pot in a seven-player solo, not 85%
d-ice (1969 D)
09 Feb 18 UTC
Ok, I see your point but personally I don't think it's that much of a problem that eliminated players can get different scores depending on what happens. Consider the 2-way draw in C-diplo, 5 eliminated players would then share third place bonus. Is it reasonable that eliminated players get more points in a two-way than a three-way? No. But the point is that there are probably so many different special cases that apply to different scoring systems that I don't think it's worth bothering. I'd turn it around and say that solo-winner deserves the 21% extra points, and players that have been eliminated are just as guilty as the survivors for creating the oppotunity to steal the solo. Therefore 0 points is reasonable.
nopunin10did (1041 D)
09 Feb 18 UTC
A fair assessment. Either a C-diplo or Carnage system would work well here as an alternative to current systems, though I think Carnage probably scales better with varied player counts.


22 replies
Grahamso1 (1912 D)
05 Feb 18 UTC
PPSC vs SoS
I couldn’t find the answer in Help.
I know PPSC means in a solo the points are allocated based on supply centre count while in a draw it reverts to an equal split of points like DSS/WTA
For SoS over on WebDip, in a draw the points are allocated on a sum of Squares principle. But Help section doesn’t say what happens in a solo. Same method or reverts to winner takes all? I’m assuming SoS whether draw or solo but checking
Thanks
14 replies
Open
Technostar (1302 D)
03 Sep 17 UTC
(+1)
"Divided States" - New variant in progress
"Divided States" is a variant where every US state is a country. I am looking for advice about it. See reply for details.
61 replies
Open
Greatdjenkins (927 D)
30 Jan 18 UTC
you hippies whats in da hood
come at me bro, when people see u they be like FATYYYYYYYY
7 replies
Open
Just a heads up...
I'm headed to our cabin for a week tomorrow. I'll still get internet on the phone when we head into town for dinner each night, but my communication may be lacking in game on any press games.
5 replies
Open
GOD (1850 D Mod (B))
27 Jan 18 UTC
Looking for Callifornians
I'm currently travelling through California for a good month and wondered if there's any players out here who'd like to meet or maybe even host me?
2 replies
Open
Greatdjenkins (927 D)
22 Jan 18 UTC
Ambassidor is a crybaby
ambassidor, and argentinaian empire looooooooooove fluttershy and dora, although i think argentianian empire might like boots ( doras pet monkey, hes a boy )
9 replies
Open
Brenden (898 D)
25 Jan 18 UTC
call me
hey girl
2 replies
Open
kaner406 (2181 D Mod (B))
19 Jan 18 UTC
(+1)
Mod announcement
Please join us in welcoming gopher to our mod-team. We promise not to let him use his newfound powers to win the "winning" thread.
8 replies
Open
Temasek22 (980 D)
18 Jan 18 UTC
Help
I can’t login for the next few days. Would appreciate if anyone can help step in
0 replies
Open
Page 130 of 160
FirstPreviousNextLast
Back to top